A BOY FOR SALE 

Children's Sermons 

T. Fenwick Lund 






Class ~6 V^hll3 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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A Boy For Sale 

and twenty-five other 

CHILDREN SERMONS 

by 

T. FENWICK LUND 

< * 


SUPPLEMENT No. 8 

of the 

PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 

(Quick Service for Busy Pastor’s Series) 

COMPILED AND EDITED BY 

ST. JOHN HALSTEAD 

Author 

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PASTOR’S IDEAL BOOK CO. 

St. John Halstead, Mgr. 

CLINTON, INDIANA 


PRINTED BY 


KELLER-CRESCENT CO., EVANSVILLE^ IND. 






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Copyright 1924, by 
St. JOHN HALSTEAD 
Clinton, Indiana 


JUL -5 ’24 


©CIA 80008 5 

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DEDICATION 

The author respectfully dedicates these Story- 
ettes to the boys and girls of the South Calgary 
United Church to whom they were delivered and 
by whom they were inspired, in the hope that the 
extent of the good they do will not be measured 
by the simplicity of their style and language. 


PREFACE 

In regard to the Story Sermons given in this 
volume, the author wishes to point out that they 
are given very much as they were delivered. They 
are little life lessons that have suggested them¬ 
selves from things we see in the ordinary round of 
life. It is the hope that the reading of these Story 
Sermons may help some who find difficulty in 
bringing a message to their junior congregation. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Title Page 

1. Old Dutch Cleanser . 5 

2. The Three-Handed Boy . 9 

3. Mirrors. 13 

4. Prairie Fires.-. 18 

5. Blind Alleys __ 22 

6. The Real Hero. 26 

7. Life’s Kit Bag . 30 

8. Drive Yourself . 35 

9. Be A Brick . 39 

10. Rags And Bones . 43 

11. Danger Signals. 49 

12. Decoys . 53 

13. Digging . 57 

14. Gas Masks. 62 

15. No Corns With Old Shoes. 66 

16. Dreams That Come True.. 70 

17. Clay Men. 75 

18. Quicksands . 81 

19. Carrier Pigeons. 85 

20. A Boy For Sale . 89 

21. Safety First_ 94 

22. Ships That Sail and Ships That Sink.... 98 

23. Echoes . 103 

24. Wooden Money.107 

25. Watches. Ill 

26. Train Talk. 115 











































PASTORS IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


5 


OLD DUTCH CLEANSER. 

(It is advisable to have a cutting or sketch 
of the old lady on the Dutch Cleanser tin to in¬ 
troduce the subject.) 

The other morning when I was in my study 
thinking of you boys and girls I wondered what 
I would talk to you about this Sunday morning. 
One subject, then another, came and went with¬ 
out helping me to decide. Finally, I left the 
room of books and went downstairs and was 
greeted by an old friend whom I had not seen 
for sometime. I said to myself, “Here's my 
chance to get some help." I at once told her' 
my difficulty and she immediately said, “Tell 
them about me." I hesitated for a minute and 
seeing me do so, she said, “I'll go along." So 
here she is. (Introduce Old Dutch). 

Now, boys and girls, we are going to carry 
on an imaginary conversation with this old lady, 
and I think we will all profit by what she has to 
say. Old Mother Dutch says she exists to ban¬ 
ish dirt. She detests it. All the old pots and 
pans know that when she is around they must 
always be bright and clean. 

Old Dutch says there are many things in 
the lives of boys and girls that ought to be 
cleaned out. Think of all the undesirable habits 
which make their home in the boy and girl life 
of today. 

I. THE LITTLE WHITE LIE. 

How easy it is to tell a little white lie to 



PASTORS IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


save a spanking or other inconvenience. But 
listen boys and girls. It is often the beginning 
of what turns out in later years to be your 
greatest handicap—a bad habit. 

Years ago there lived a king by the name 
of King Phillip. He was a king who loved to be 
entertained. Around the Royal Court he kept 
a paid party of entertainers whose chief occupa¬ 
tion was to keep the king amused. One day 
there appeared in the presence of the king a 
performer who defied any of the king’s servants 
to tie him up with rope so that he could not get 
loose. Several of them tried. They tied him 
in all positions and still he wriggled out of the 
knotted rope. At last one of the servants asked 
that he might have as many spools of thread as 
he needed and said he could tie him so that he 
would never get loose alone. The thread was 
brought, and he started at the man’s head and 
wrapped strand after strand closely together 
until he had covered him from head to foot. 
Then he was told to get loose. He wriggled and 
twisted about without avail and finally they 
had to cut him free from his thread. “It was 
only thread,” you say. Yes, and he could have 
snapped the first few wrappings without any ef¬ 
fort, but they got such hold on him that they 
overpowered him at the last, and he was help¬ 
less.; Beware of the little white lie. You can 
stop now but later on you will find that it is 
master of your life. 

II. SMOKING. 

How many times I have noticed a yellowish 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


¥ 

tinge of color to a boy's finger and thumb. It 
seems strange that it did not get on the other 
fingers. You know what I am thinking of. That 
poison acid called nicotine, which comes from 
the cigarettes he smoked. Do you know that 
this nicotine is one of the most deadly poisons 
that ever gets into the system of a boy? 

Did you ever hear the story of a boy named 
Herbert Secrest ? Several years ago it was pub¬ 
lished in the Des Moines Daily News. If I 
could afford it, I would have it printed in 
pamphlet form and a copy given to every boy 
who had started to use tobacco. It would be a 
fascinating story if it were not so sadly true. 
When he was nine years old, he began to smoke 
cigarettes. He died at the age of sixteen years, 
and he died because of the deadly influence of 
nicotine over his system. 

When he was told there was no hope for 
him, he buried his face in the pillow for a few 
minutes and then asked that his chums be 
brought to see him for the last time. When 
they came, he urged them with his dying breath 
to give up smoking, as it had cost him his life. 
What a testimony and what a warning for every 
boy. When you draw cigarette smoke into your 
mouth you are just deadening your brain, ruin¬ 
ing your lungs, hurting your heart in its action 
and generally contributing to your own funeral 
at an early date. Old Dutch says clean out the 
bad habit of smoking and you'll be clean boys in 
that way. 



8 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


III. PROFANE LANGUAGE. 

Then lastly, boys, let me mention about the 
habit some boys have of using profane language. 
Some do it because they heard some older per¬ 
son use it and, like them, think it is real smart. 
What a mistake. Bad language lessens a boy in 
real worthwhileness. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


9 


THE THREE-HANDED BOY. 

I wonder how many boys and girls have 
seen a three-handed boy? We have all seen the 
ordinary kind with two hands but the three- 
handed boy you are thinking must be something 
of a freak. Not so. You would be surprised if 
I told you that in all probability there are quite 
a number of three-handed boys—and girls, too, 
right here this morning. They can be found 
in every country under the sun and in every 
city, in every town and in every community. 

Let me show you what I mean. Every boy 
has a right hand and a left hand and a great 
many boys have a little behind hand. 

Now this little behind hand is always the 
most troublesome. It is responsible for very 
many of the handicaps with which boys and 
girls find themselves possessed. 

You want to know where the boys and girls 
are who have this little behind hand? 

I. DO YOU KNOW ANY BOYS OR GIRLS 

WHO ARE ALWAYS LATE? 

Punctuality is a word they never knew the 
meaning of. They are always behind when the 
game is scheduled to commence. They are al¬ 
ways late for school and always behind hand in 
their studies. They are always late. Conse- 



10 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


quently the little behind hand in every depart¬ 
ment of life spoils the whole of life for them. 

It is said of the late Mr. Gladstone that 
whenever he made an appointment with anyone 
he always noted that appointment ten minutes 
earlier in his diary. For years before he re¬ 
tired from active public life he was never once 
late or behind for an appointment no matter 
how little importance was attached to it. The 
boys and girls who make a practice of punctual¬ 
ity always make their way in their world. 

Big business concerns make a point of de¬ 
manding punctuality of their employees and 
have time clocks on which are numbers as well 
as figures and every assistant must punch the 
clock on entering and leaving. These “punches” 
are carefully checked over by a time keeper and 
those who are always a little behind hand are 
weeded out from time to time and discharged. 

If you have developed this third hand, cut 
it off with a knife called Resolution and begin 
being punctual. 

II. THEN THERE ARE SOME BOYS AND 

GIRLS WHO HAVE A THIRD HAND— 

ALWAYS BEHIND HAND WITH THEIR 

LITTLE ACTS OF THOUGHTFULNESS. 

Mother always has to ask them to get her 
a little coal or a little wood, or to do some little 
thing for her. It is not that they mean to be 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


11 


unkind to Mother but they developed the third 
hand called Thoughtlessness. 

How often we sing that beautiful little 
hymn as our Childrens' Hymn: 

“If any little word of mine 
May make a heart be lighter 
If any little thought of mine 
May make some life be brighter— 

Lord help me speak that little word. 

Some time ago a mother died in a large 
American hospital and the doctors said she had 
died of a broken heart caused by the neglect 
of her family to speak a word of kindness and 
appreciation for the labour of love which she 
gave for their comfort. 

So you see, boys and girls, this third hand 
of Thoughtlessness must be cut off when it does 
so much damage. 

III. THEN THERE IS ANOTHER LITTLE 
BEHIND HAND THAT I WISH TO RE¬ 
MIND YOU OF. IT IS THIS: THE 
LITTLE BEHIND HAND OF COURAGE- 
LESSNESS. 

How many times this little hand comes in¬ 
to prominence. Whenever you fail to stand up 
for what you know to be true for fear of what 
your chums may think of you the little behind 
hand of Couragelessness shows itself. 

A most inspiring story is told of a boy who 
grew up to be a great man in the church. It all 
took place when he was a student at college. He 



12 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


was a splendid athlete and was in demand for 
almost all the teams of the college. One day 
when they were getting into their togs to go 
out and play one of the stiffest opponents, some 
of the boys began talking about improper sub¬ 
jects and used some very bad language. He im¬ 
mediately stopped and said “Boys this talk must 
stop or I refuse to play.” They thought at first 
he was only joking but he quickly assured them 
that he was serious and meant every word of 
his threat and the language changed at once. 
That boy was looked up to and admired by all 
his chums for his courage. Had he been cour¬ 
ageless at that time he would have lost ground 
he could never have regained. Is it any won¬ 
der that the day came when he became Bishop 
Coleridge Pattison? 

So boys and girls beware of the third little 
Behind Hand. Your heavenly Father gave you 
two and He intended you to get along well with 
them and no more. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


13 


MIRRORS. 

My talk to you this morning is about mir¬ 
rors. 


I realize at once that the subject will be of 
more interest to the girls than to the boys, but 
the boys are always good listeners. 

You have all seen mirrors. 

Some are small, some are large. Some are 
round in shape, some are oval, some are square, 
while others again are long and narrow. The 
shape and size do not make any difference in 
the purpose—it is ever the same, namely, to re¬ 
flect objects placed in front of them. 

I remember a number of years ago attend¬ 
ing a large fair and going down the Midway 
where they have all the side shows and the 
funny things to see. Among these funny things 
was The House that Jack Built. It was really 
funny. Let me tell just a little about it. When 
you got inside you discovered that it had mir¬ 
rors all over every wall in every room. They 
were specially made for the purpose and every 
one of them showed you yourself in a new light. 
In one you looked long and thin. In another you 
saw yourself short and thick through. In an¬ 
other you saw yourself in other proportions. I 
can assure you that if you ever laughed at your¬ 
self in your life you would do it in there, in the 
house that Jack built. But there was this about 
it to be thankful for—they were faked mirrors 



14 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


and not true to life. 

The mirrors we know anything about are 
intended to give us a true picture of ourselves. 

Now, I wonder how many of the boys and 
girls know how a mirror is made. A mirror is 
a smooth surface of glass backed with mercury 
and tin or silver, and by this combination it re¬ 
flects objects with wonderful distinctness. Long 
before men knew anything about making mir¬ 
rors of glass they felt the need of something of 
that kind, so they used to polish small sheets of 
metal. I imagine they did not meet with very 
great results. It would not be very easy to ad¬ 
just your hair or tie with a mirror which was 
only a piece of polished tin or some other metal. 

Nowadays, mirrors are indispensable. They 
are used for many different purposes. Auto¬ 
mobiles are often equipped with a small mirror 
attached to the side of the wind shield by means 
of which the driver can tell if there is another 
car immediately behind him, in case of wanting 
to stop suddenly. 

Doctors and dentists use them when they 
wish to examine the mouth or the teeth very 
closely, and find them a wonderful help in their 
work. 

I know of a large Department Store in 
Western Canada where they detect shop lifters 
and pocket thieves by a system of mirrors 
which are placed so as to carry a report to the 
far end of the store of what you may be doing 
at the front counters. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


15 


There are several very good things that 
mirrors do for us:- 

I. A MIRROR WILL SHOW YOU JUST AS 

YOU ARE. 

You will recognize yourself at once in it. 
You can make faces at it, and it replies immedi¬ 
ately. You frown—it frowns. You laugh—it 
does the same. It is as real in what it tells of 
you, as you are yourself. Isn't that just like 
the world in which we live everyday ? It sends 
us back just what we give it. Just think of it 
in this way. Were you ever ugly with your 
chums or out of sorts with everybody else ? Of 
course you were, and you remember that at that 
very time the world was just the same to you 
as you were to it. If you are unkind and un¬ 
reasonable and impetuous and fault-finding, the 
world will look the same to you. 

II. MIRRORS ARE POWERFUL WHEN US¬ 
ED AS REFLECTORS. 

I well remember the time in my boyhood 
days when the more annoyance I could give, the 
happier I was; and the trick that brought most 
fun on sunny days was to get a piece of an old 
mirror and make it reflect a bright and annoy¬ 
ing ray of light through a window into the eyes 
of someone inside. 

On the sea coast the mirror does wonder¬ 
ful service at night. By having very finely fin¬ 
ished mirrors behind a bright light a flash or 
steady light can be sent out many miles over 



16 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


the ocean and give warning to sailors who are 
out there. 

A friend of mine some years ago went down 
into his cellar to look at his potatoes and make 
sure that they were not spoiling. To his sur¬ 
prise he found that they had already begun to 
sprout. He began looking for the cause. He 
went inside the room in the basement and closed 
the door behind him. There he found the cause. 
A ray of light was streaming through one cor¬ 
ner and was being reflected off an old can right 
into the potato bin. This ray of light was 
enough to make them sprout. Mirrors, even an 
old tin one such as this, are keen reflectors. 
They gather up all about you and announce you 
to the world at once. Your life within is re¬ 
flected in your face. What you are inside shows 
on the outside and you cannot prevent it from 
doing so. A boy well behaved and good man¬ 
nered always reflects good home training, as a 
boy or girl high up in their studies always re¬ 
flects not only credit upon their teacher but up¬ 
on their diligence as well. 

Remember that when you are thinking 
your thoughts, perhaps all alone, they will 
eventually show themselves in your life. 

III. THE MIRROR IS VERY NEEDFUL, BE¬ 
CAUSE BY IT WE CAN FIX UP SOME 
THINGS THAT MAY BE WRONG ABOUT 
OURSELVES. 

Not often do we find boys who turn all 
around in front of a mirror to see that they are 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


17 


all right, but sometimes it would be a good thing 
for them to do. I saw a boy going down the 
street a while ago with the lining of his cap 
hanging down. He was quite a spruced up little 
fellow, too, and how badly he would have felt if 
he had know that he had gone through the 
heart of the town like that. The Bible is a won¬ 
derful mirror. It shows what is wrong with 
our hearts and tells us of our need of Jesus 
Christ to keep them sweet and clean. 

Let us not neglect to look into that great 
mirror, that we may be able to put the things 
right that God tells us in His book are wrong 
inside. 



18 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


PRAIRIE FIRES. 

I suppose that every boy and girl here this 
morning has been up in the Rockies, and among 
other things you have noticed sign boards at al¬ 
most every turn of the road warning people to 
be sure that their fires are out before they leave 
their camp grounds. As a result of the careless¬ 
ness of campers and others, Canada loses mil¬ 
lions of dollars worth of timber every year. The 
Government has men out all through the for¬ 
ests, called Fire Rangers, whose sole work is the 
checking of fire. Sometimes the spark from a 
train will start a most disastrous fire, which of 
course is accidental. The majority of the fires 
however are started by the carelessness of peo¬ 
ple who disregard the notices and warnings. 
Personally, I cannot see how some can be so 
neglectful. One summer I spent my vacation up 
in the mountains, and the thing continually up¬ 
on my mind was fire. Every fresh board im¬ 
pressed it anew—“Save the Forest. It's 
Yours.” In the Southern States one of the 
railroad companies has, only with great dif¬ 
ficulty, been able to save its road from be¬ 
ing burned up on many occasions. It has 
notice boards up but people still go on throw¬ 
ing cigar stubs out of the train windows and the 
result has been a whole country side covered 
with fire in a very few minutes. 

Now it occured to me that there were very 
often fires in the lives of boys and girls which 
burned very furiously and burned until they had 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


19 


almost cleared the life of everything of real 
value. 

I. THE FIRST FIRE ABOUT WHICH I WISH 

TO SPEAK IS CALLED “CARELESS¬ 
NESS.” 

This fire burns very slowly but it does a 
very deadly work. In some cases it has com¬ 
pletely ruined the whole life. Think how it 
works out at school. A little carelessness in ad¬ 
dition or subtraction will mean the whole sum 
is wrong. I had one of our girls ask me a ques¬ 
tion she was having difficulty with and could 
not get the right answer. I never expected any¬ 
body to take me for a mathematician, and felt 
it a compliment. We looked over the problem 
together and there we found just a simple mis¬ 
take in adding. But it meant that the whole 
sum was wrong. 

Or you think of another case where the fire 
of carelessness is burning. When a boy be¬ 
comes slovenly or the girl ceases to want to be 
neat and clean it is not very long before the 
whole life is brought to a very low level. 

No employer wants an office boy or stenog¬ 
rapher who is careless. Beware of the fire of 
carelessness. 

II. THEN THERE IS THE FIRE OF TEM¬ 
PER. 

Oh how this fire bums! It is a fire fed with 
everything that burns up quickly. Whenever a 



20 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


prairie fire starts in the open country everybody 
drops their work to get out and fight it. I have 
sometimes had to stop a service to go and help 
fight fires. The fire of temper runs faster than 
you can and does its work thoroughly. Most of 
the crimes with which men are charged from 
time to time, are the results of temper. I re¬ 
member several years ago a friend of mine in 
haste struck a workmate over the head with his 
dinner pail. It was the act of a moment but 
how repentant he was. With all his repentance 
he could not recall the hasty act done. People 
say things in a temper that they would never 
say in a steady frame of mind. Generally they 
go and apologize later when the storm has blown 
over or the fire has died down. Beware of the 
fire of Temper. 

III. THEN THERE IS THE FIRE OF PLEAS¬ 
URE. 

Now this fire is worth watching. It is one 
of those fires we start for our own convenience' 
sake. It is a warm fire and can bring us good 
and comfort and warmth but we must watch it 
very carefully. If it runs away with you it will 
certainly do a lot of harm. You know the old 
saying “All work and no play makes Jack a 
dull boy.” It is perfectly true, but play must 
follow work, not precede it. One of the troubles 
in the world today is caused by too much love of 
pleasure and not sufficient love of work. Watch 
the fire of Pleasure. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


21 


IV. NOW THE LAST FIRE IS ONE WHICH 
I AM GOING TO URGE YOU ALL TO 
START. 

In the Bible we find these words. “Our God 
is a consuming Fire” and again we find “God is 
Love.” And it just means this. The Love of 
God will consume everything not like itself. 
You look at the boy or girl whose life is all on 
fire with the Love of Christ and see the glow of 
happiness there. The Love of God will bum up 
the dross and the rubbish and the impurities in 
the heart and make the life just what it should 
be. 


Get the Love of God burning up the unlove¬ 
ly and the unChrist-like and very soon your 
whole life will be on fire to do good. 



22 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


BLIND ALLEYS. 

I wonder how many of our boys or girls 
know what a blind alley is. It is a trail or road 
or street with no outlet to it. It has only one 
end to it and to get out you must come back the 
same way. It doesn't lead you anywhere. Some 
times we are in a blind alley before we know it. 
I remember one occasion when I was in a great 
hurry to get to a certain place that I took what 
I thought was a short cut through a narrow 
street, and to my annoyance I found that I was 
in a blind alley and had to turn back again 
to the main road before I could continue my 
journey. There are a number of experiences 
still fresh in my memory when, in my first years 
out on the western prairies, I got off on trails 
that didn’t lead anywhere except up to a bar¬ 
bed wire fence. 

There are other Blind Alleys besides these 
I have mentioned. Alleys which are of greater 
menace to the progress of a boy or girl than 
merely striking a wrong road when on a jour¬ 
ney. 

I. THERE IS A STREET WHICH I THINK 

WE OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT. IT IS 

CALLED AIMLESS STREET. 

It is astonishing the number of people who 
live on this street. A house is never empty 
longer that to allow one set to move out and an¬ 
other to move in. This street has only one way 
to it. It is blind at one end. There are a num- 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


23 


ber of families on this street whom I am sure 
you will know when I just mention their names. 
There are the Ne'er Do Wells. They are not 
up to much. The father is an idler and won't 
work. The boys are always is some scrape. 
They never go to any Sunday School or church 
or have any interest in anything worth while. 
Then there is the Idler family. Quite a large 
family and then they are inter-related with so 
many of the others; in fact you cannot say any¬ 
thing about any of them without all their re¬ 
lations thinking you mean them. Amos Ambi¬ 
tionless is a cousin and he boards with the Id¬ 
lers and is quite at home. And there are many 
others on the same street whom I could mention 
but they are so much alike that you would not 
be interested in hearing about them. The amaz¬ 
ing thing about it is this: They all moved into 
this street when the hard times came. They 
hadn't any push in them and found congenial 
surroundings there. Now they do not want to 
get out of it. 

Beware of Aimless street. It will rob you 
of your Ambition to be something. Get an aim 
in life and try to realize it by your best work. 

II. THEN THERE ARE BLIND ALLEY OC¬ 
CUPATIONS. 

They do not lead to anything. It may be all 
right for you boys to take a job when you leave 
school, until you can look around and find your¬ 
self in a world of workers, but don't stay there. 
Make up your mind that life is going to be big- 



24 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


ger than a job; it is going to be a God-given 
privilege which you must appreciate to the full. 
“Life is not a goblet to be drained but a measure 
to be filled.” 

The story is told of a little side station in 
the far South. One day there landed on an ex¬ 
press train a crate with a calf in it. It stood 
there on the platform for nearly the whole day 
and the calf bawled most of the time. Late in 
the afternoon the station agent sent his colored 
helper out to find out to whom and where this 
calf was going. The dusky assistant came back 
with this reply. “Say, Boss, that there calf 
don’t know where he’s going. He done chawed 
his tag.” There are lots of boys who are trap¬ 
ped in blind alley occupations and they are not 
going to get anywhere. Watch them. 


III. KEEP YOUR EYE WIDE OPEN FOR 
THE BLIND ALLEY COMPANION¬ 
SHIPS. 

I do not think there is a quicker way to 
take the life and fire out of a boy or girl than by 
allowing them to spend their time with bad 
companions. There may be a number of fea¬ 
tures about these associates to attract you but 
the chief things about them are wrong, and 
sooner or later they will pull you down to their 
level, so don’t delude yourself by thinking you 
can make them better. It doesn’t work out that 
way in real life. Bad associations always cor¬ 
rupt the best in everybody. 



PASTOR'S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


25 


Now why not think of just one way that 
is not a Blind Alley? We have a Way of Life 
known to many as the only way to lives of ser¬ 
vice and usefulness. The Highway of Life that 
Jesus planned out for boys and girls is a won¬ 
derfully attractive way. It is not a blind alley 
with only one end to it. It is a great broad high¬ 
way with all the best people living on it and all 
the optimists—the happy people everywhere. 
The Idler Family could never be happy on it and 
had to get off by themselves. The Do-Goods and 
the Kind Hearts live there and they are all 
members of the Help One Another Club which 
is continually in session. They always know 
that one of their members is doing good some¬ 
where, for God uses them all the time. This 
way is the Jesus way of living. It will keep you 
from being aimless and it will keep you from 
Life's Blind Alleys, and make you a blessing to 
your fellow men. 

Follow the Way of Life that Jesus mapped 
out and you never need worry about getting in¬ 
to the Blind Alleys. 



26 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


THE REAL HERO. 

The story is told of the late Mr. John Wan- 
amaker that one Sunday afternoon he was tak¬ 
ing a walk down to the wharf when he was at¬ 
tracted to a group of boys who were having high 
times playing in a pile of old wood which had 
been thrown from a vessel after unloading. He 
crossed over to them just to have a chat—for 
Mr. Wanamaker was always infested in boys. 
He broke the ice very easily by striking upon a 
subject they were all interested in, and they at 
once became attentive to their strange friend. 
In stories and general topics the afternoon just 
seemed to fly away and it was time to be going 
home. “Say, Mr.” said one of the bays, “Do 
you come this way every Sunday ?” “Well,” said 
Mr. Wanamaker, “I can come down next Sun¬ 
day if you wish me to do so.” They at once 
agreed to meet the next Sunday and to bring 
any of their friends who might wish to come 
along with them. Next Sunday soon came and 
at the hour appointed Mr. Wanamaker went to 
meet his boys. Sure enough they were there all 
perched on the woodpile waiting for him, and 
manifested their delight at seeing him come 
again. This Sunday Mr. Wannamaker told them 
he was going to tell them about some of the 
great heroes who lived in the Bible times. He 
told them about Samuel and they were more 
than interested. The hour for adjournment 
came even sooner that day than it had the pre¬ 
vious Sunday. They planned to meet every Sun¬ 
day from that on. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


27 


Time wore on and the summer afternoons 
were quickly changing to the slightly cool days 
of Fall and it was getting too cold to sit around 
their woodpile, and something must be done if 
they were to continue their chats. Mr. Wana¬ 
maker suggested that they try to get a room 
in a nearby Sunday School which would be 
warm and comfortable for them. He agreed 
with the boys to arrange the matter during the 
week and to meet them the following Sunday at 
the woodpile and they would all go over togeth¬ 
er It was easy for Mr. Wanamaker to arrange 
anything for boys and next Sunday he met and 
marched over to the nearby Sunday School with 
his class. He at once started in real earnest to 
try and keep these boys coming, and made the 
sessions as interesting and attractive as he pos¬ 
sibly could. They continued their studies about 
heroes, taking men like Moses, Abraham, Dan¬ 
iel, David, Peter, Paul and finally in the Bible 
series Jesus, Himself. They went outside and he 
told them of Napoleon and his wonderful vic¬ 
tories, of Wellington, of Nelson, and many 
others. One Sunday he planned to have a quizz 
class to sound them and find out just where 
they stood. His first question was big enough 
to take the whole afternoon “Who was the 
Greatest Hero?” He got a number of answers 
as we might expect. One boy said Napoleon was 
the greatest hero because he licked the world. 
Another boy who disagreed with him said: 
“Shucks, Napoleon wasn't the greatest hero; 
Wellington was a greater hero than he ever 
was.” At this Mr. Wanamaker asked the last 



28 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


boy why he was so emphatic in his statement 
that Wellington was a greater hero than Napo¬ 
leon. “Because after Napoleon had licked the 
world Wellington licked Napoleon,” came the re¬ 
ply as quick as if it was charged with dynamite. 
The issue was by no means settled. One rather 
meek little fellow who up to this time had not 
said very much ventured his opinion that neith¬ 
er Napoleon nor Wellington was the greatest 
hero. In his estimation, Jesus, the man who 
died on the Cross was the greatest. “Why,” 
asked Mr. Wanamaker. “Because He died and 
He didn’t have to.” That boy won the argu¬ 
ment. 

Now here boys and girls is the clue to what 
I wish to leave with you today. 

I. THE WORLD ALWAYS MAKES HE¬ 
ROES OF THE BOYS WHO ARE BIG 
ENOUGH TO DO THE THINGS THEY 
DO NOT HAVE TO DO. 

Think what that means in your own lives. 
You are going to school every day. What for? 
To play? No, to get an education. You don’t 
have to get an education. You have to go to 
school but no one can compel you to get an edu¬ 
cation. But listen boys, you will be the better 
for getting it when you go out into life a few 
years from now. You don’t have to get it. Be 
big enough to do what you do not have to do. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


29 


II. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GO OUT OF 

YOUR WAY TO DO A GOOD TURN. 

No law in the land could touch you for re¬ 
fusing to be kindly disposed towards other peo¬ 
ple. But you will be a bigger boy or girl in the 
eyes of the world if you are generous-hearted 
and thoughtful, and do the good you can in the 
world. 

III. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE FOR 

JESUS EVERY DAY. 

He wants you to do so, but He has no way 
of compelling you to do so. You may have big 
thoughts about life and what you want to be. 
Perhaps you have failed to see that character 
is the first thing to be sure of. If you accept 
the standards of Jesus it will be astonishing to 
you afterwards how He helped you to realize 
your life hopes. 

You do not have to live for Him but you 
will be the biggest of boys and girls if you do. 



30 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


LIFE’S KIT BAG. 

(It is necessary, in order to make the most of 
this story, to have a soldier’s kit bag or haver¬ 
sack with the articles used as illustrations, con¬ 
cealed, to be brought out in turn in which they 
are used. To keep them out of sight will hold 
the interest of the children (and grownups) 
and be sure to make the storyette a success.) 

You can all see the article which I have 
here this morning. You all know in an instant 
what it is. We have just got over a tremendous 
war and every soldier who paraded down the 
street with his battalion, on his way to the 
front, carried one of these bags. In it he had 
all the little nick nacks he needed for his per¬ 
sonal comfort. It was regarded as part of his 
equipment. Now it occured to me that there are 
a number of things which every boy needs to 
have as part of his life equipment, without 
which he will find that his life kit lacks some¬ 
thing. 

I. (HERE BRING OUT THE FIRST ARTI¬ 
CLE FROM THE BAG—TOOTHBRUSH.) 

You are all smiling at the sight of this 
toothbrush. After all there are few things more 
necessary than a toothbrush. The story is told 
of a boy who was going away with his Sunday 
School class for a week’s camp life in the coun¬ 
try. His teacher told them the previous Sun¬ 
day that they had to bring, comb, brush, soap 
and toothbrush. This little boy at once went 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


31 


home and packed up as much as he possibly 
could although they were not to go until near 
the end of the week. Among the things which 
he packed was the toothbrush, and it was only 
found out the next day when his mother hap¬ 
pened to ask him if he had cleaned his teeth. He 
had of course to own up that it was packed and 
his mother made him get busy right away and 
brush up his teeth real good. 

It is recognized more than ever that good 
teeth are a great help to good health. 

Up to date school boards often employ a 
school dentist whose whole time is given up to 
fixing the teeth of school children and extract¬ 
ing teeth that are decayed. 

A friend of mine a little while ago was in 
very poor health and went to a specialist about 
his condition. The doctor informed him that 
his poor health was due to his poor teeth and 
that he would never be any better until he had 
them out or attended to. He had them attend¬ 
ed to at once and from that time he has had 
very little trouble with his health. 

When a man signs up for military service 
the first thing they do is to examine his teeth 
and if any are faulty he must go to the army 
dentist and have them out. The authorities put 
great importance to the teeth being in proper 
condition. Don't be afraid of the tooth brush. 
It is one of your best friends and a real neces¬ 
sity in your life’s kit bag. 



32 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


II. (NEXT YOUR PIECE OF SOAP). 

Now I know when I produce this next arti¬ 
cle that I am regarded with suspicion by the 
boys but nevertheless I must bring it out and 
say a word about it. Next to keeping the mouth 
sweet and clean is the keeping of the body 
clean. The old saying that cleanliness is next 
to godliness is very hard for some people to be¬ 
lieve but it is true. What a help a clean body 
is towards a healthy body. 

A mother who was noted for her fussiness 
about cleanliness, in the scope of her own fam¬ 
ily at least, told Johnny to hurry and wash for 
dinner. It was never necessary for mother to 
say “Hurry” to a boy when she told him to 
wash, and this boy was no exception to the rule. 
He was no sooner out to the wash room than 
he was back, to the astonishment of his mother. 
She began a cross examination of poor Johnny 
and the following took place: 

Mother: Johnny did you wash? 

Johnny: Yes mother. 

Mother: Did you wash your face? 

Johnny: Yes mother. 

Mother: Your neck? 

Johnny: Yes mother. 

Mother: Your hands? 

Johnny: Yes mother. 

Mother: Your ears? 

Johnny: Say mother I ain’t an angel. 

But little did poor Johnny know that habits of 
neglect about the cleanliness of the body would 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


33 


make him an angel before his appointed time, 
and that if he did not want that, he had better 
be particular about keeping himself clean. Soap 
is necessary in your life's kit bag. 

III. (HERE PRODUCE YOUR SMALL 
FLOWER. THE MORE DELICATE THE 
TINT THE MORE YOU CAN MAKE OF 
IT.) 

Why do we need the flower, you are saying 
to yourself. The flower stands for the apprecia¬ 
tion of the good and the true and the beautiful. 
No boy or girl can get very far in this world 
if they are devoid of the finer senses. It is a 
grand, exhilarating thing to meet with young 
folks who have a keen appreciation of the great 
and beautiful world in which they live, and be¬ 
cause of that appreciation they live to try and 
make this world a better and brighter place for 
others to live in. Your kit of life will be very 
poorly balanced if you leave out the love for the 
beautiful. One man said that if he had only 
two coins he would spend one for bread and the 
other for a nosegay for his soul. The beautiful 
will inspire your soul to great things and your 
mind to noble thoughts and you would not want 
to go through life without these. Put the little 
flower in your life kit and you will not regret it. 

IV. (LASTLY BRING OUT YOUR NEW 
TESTAMENT OR BIBLE. 

I feel sure that none of you want to go out 
on your life journey without being fully equip- 



34 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


ped, and so I know that you will see the need 
of this—The Word of God. The soap and the 
toothbrush will help keep the body clean and 
free from disease. The flower—will help you a 
great deal in your attempts to live a good life; 
it will make you sympathetic and brotherly and 
considerate, but the Bible will keep your heart 
clean and pure. The writer of Proverbs says 
“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it 
are the issues of life.” He knew what he was 
talking about when he said it. More boys and 
girls have found the way of life a happy one, 
from following the Bible, than from any other 
source. Your kit bag will be very poorly equip¬ 
ped and you will be seriously handicapped if you 
have not the help which Jesus gives to us in 
The Word. Fit up your kit right for your life's 
Journey and you will never have reason to re¬ 
gret it. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


35 


“DRIVE YOURSELF.” 

I was going along the street the other day, 
when among other signs I noticed, was one out¬ 
side an automobile hire stand which said 
“DRIVE YOURSELF.” No doubt I had seen it 
many times before but it had not made any im¬ 
pression on my mind such as it did on this par¬ 
ticular day. As I walked along the street I kept 
saying to myself “Drive Yourself,” until it be¬ 
gan to shape itself into a larger question than 
merely an announcement that cars were to be 
had there without a driver if one was competent 
to drive a car himself. I saw it as a great 
inspiring command to every boy and girl in the 
land to take hold and make the most of them¬ 
selves. 

Have you ever stopped to think that the 
world offers its best places to the boy and girl 
who have the push and enthusiasm in them¬ 
selves, and work hard to get along? You just 
get out of this world what you put into it; the 
fellow who puts little into it gets little out and 
the fellow who puts his best into it gets out 
what he puts into it. 

I. YOU MUST HAVE GASOLINE. 

Now just as a car must have gasoline in it 
before it will go, so the boy who wishes to make 
a success of life must have it. We do not call 
it Gasoline in the human system but we might 
call it, very wisely, Ambition. Without it you 
will not get very far. It was ambition that 



36 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


drove ahead every great man that the world has 
had. 


When he was a young lad of 18 years of 
age, Bernard Pallissy, the French potter, start¬ 
ed out to make a name for himself in the world. 
For ten long years he sought success but it 
seemed to avoid him, even when he thought he 
had it in his grasp. When he did get it, how¬ 
ever, he got all the principal, with interest add¬ 
ed to it, for the long years of struggle he had 
put in. Nature always deals this way with its 
sons. Today the people of France are justly 
proud of the struggling Bernard Pallissy who 
had Ambition in himself and drove to success 
that way. 

II. YOU MUST KNOW WHERE YOU ARE 

GOING. 

Then again it is not only a right thing to 
“Drive Yourself” by having ambition, but you 
must remember there are other powers to be 
considered. I had occasion one day to go to a 
garage to hire a car to make a short journey. 
As soon as the garage man met me, the ques¬ 
tion he asked me was this: “Where are you go¬ 
ing?” I had to tell him where I was going be¬ 
fore he would consent to me taking a car out 
of the garage. 

It is necessary for you to have an aim and 
to know where you are going. 

The story is told of a calf in a crate which 
landed at an outlying station down south. It 
stood on the station platform all day and the 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


37 


calf bawled his head off at the treatment he 
was receiving. The agent at last sent out his 
colored helper to find out where the calf was 
going. The man came back with this reply: 
“Boss, that calf don't know where he's going, 
he done chawed his tag.'' 

How many boys there are like that! They 
don’t know where they are going. One of the 
most absurd sayings I ever heard in my life was 
one when I first came to the West, “I don't 
know where I’m going but I’m on my way." It 
was one of old Josh Wise's sayings, that there 
are two kinds of people always in hard luck: 
“them that did and never thought and them 
that thought and never did." Both are humiliat¬ 
ing to the extreme. The second waits so long 
that the other fellow comes along and does the 
thing we were thinking about and he gets the 
credit, and the cream attached to it. The first 
lacks head-work to balance the act and general¬ 
ly it would have been better if it had never been 
committed at all. If you have an aim you will 
find that it will be vitally linked up with your 
life ideals and will very largely be the expres¬ 
sion of what you are in your own heart. Jesus 
gave us the inspiration to try to do our best and 
He also gave us the right direction for life's 
journey. He said, “I am the Way. He that fol- 
loweth Me shall not walk in darkness but shall 
have the Light of Life." Surely that means that 
if we follow Him we will find the right way, and 
not only finish right but be right all along the 
jurney of life. 

Remember when you see the sign, “Drive 



38 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


Yourselfthat you are only safe when you have 
entrusted your Life's direction to the Master 
of the Road. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


39 


“BE A BRICK” 

The story I am to tell you this morning 
takes us back over a great many centuries, to 
the days when Greece was one of the leading 
nations of the world and when her beautiful city 
of Corinth harbored many of the world’s great 
men. 


In those days cities were all surrounded by 
a high wall which was intended to protect them 
from their enemies in any time of war. At cer¬ 
tain places in these walls they had gates 
through which everybody entering or leaving 
the city must pass. No doubt in those days, be¬ 
fore the big guns and cannons, such as are used 
in modern warfare, these walls proved to be of 
great assistance in time of need. 

The king at the time of our story was one 
by the name of AGEISALAUS. He is described 
as being a man of strong character, and a virtu¬ 
ous man. He did not believe in having a wall of 
stone or brick around his city of Corinth, but 
put his trust in a wall of another kind of ma¬ 
terial, altogether. Consequently the city of Cor¬ 
inth had no wall such as other cities had to pro¬ 
tect it. 

A Persian Prince came to visit AGEISA¬ 
LAUS, and naturally the King took great pride 
in showing him around the city. He saw their 
wonderful roads, their magnificent streets, and 
everything about which Corinth could boast, 



40 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


and was delighted with what he saw. In the 
evening, the king was entertaining in the palace 
for the prince and the conversation turned to 
the lack of protection they had for their beauti¬ 
ful city, in the case of war. King AGEISA- 
LAUS seemed quite surprised that the prince 
had not seen his wall of defense and promised 
to take him out early next morning to see this 
wall which he assured the prince was a great 
deal stronger than a wall of brick or stone. 

The next day out they went and the king 
took his guest to the outskirts of the city to see 
the wall. When they arrived there he pointed 
to an army of ten thousand men and said, 
“There's my wall, 10,000 men, and every man a 
brick." 

Now there are one or two lessons in this 
little story which every boy and girl ought to 
learn. 


I. THE WORLD TODAY NEEDS MORE 
WALLS OF THIS MATERIAL THAN IT 
EVER NEEDED BEFORE. 


The wall of true manhood and pure woman¬ 
hood will do more to keep the world free from 
the evils which at present tend to wreck it and 
almost ruin it, than any other wall of protection 
I know of. We have heard a great deal in these 
last few years about making the world safe for 
Democracy, but I see one absolutely certain way 



PASTORS IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


41 


of accomplishing it, and that is by getting every 
boy to be a brick in the wall which exists for 
peace and happiness and the reign of love in 
the world. 

II. THEN AGAIN THERE IS A NEED OF 

EVERY BOY AND GIRL BEING A 

BRICK IN THE CHURCH. 

When your minister looks over the church 
and tries to estimate wherein lies the strength 
and security of the church, he looks at the men 
and women of the future, and that is he looks 
at you. If every one of you will just make up 
your mind to be a Brick in the church, what a 
wonderful church for the uplift of right, for the 
defense of the unfortunate and for the benefit 
of mankind this could be. 

I remember when we were preparing to 
build this church, we got out what looked like 
street car tickets. They were red and of the 
same weight of card and the same size, but they 
were not car tickets. They were Bricks, and on 
every one of them was this phrase. “These 
Bricks Build.” We sold them for 25 cents each, 
and in this way we raised a considerable sum 
of money to buy other bricks of more substanti¬ 
al material. But we had an army of boys and 
girls in the Sunday School selling these bricks, 
and therein lay the secret of the scheme. There 
were bricks behind the cardboard bricks, who 
were alive to the need, and worked hard to see 



42 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


the thing through. 

Whenever you are tempted to do or say 
anything not really true and good, remember 
that your church and your minister and your 
father and mother and Jesus expect you to 
stand and be a brick. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


43 


“RAGS AND BONES.” 

If you have ever been in the Old Country 
you will know that there is a tremendous army 
of street hawkers who do nothing else but hawk 
wares of one kind or another, and call them 
through every street as they go. You can pur¬ 
chase almost at your own door. Men can get 
a tie or a collar, cap or shirt; women can buy 
themselves an apron, a remnant of goods, or a 
piece of meat for the table. You can even get 
your scissors ground while you wait. All these 
hawkers and many others besides, come to your 
door. 

I remember one hawker who used to always 
cause a great deal of fun for the boys especial¬ 
ly. He hollered, “Coal Oil.” He didn’t call it 
Coal Oil, but Paraffin Oil as they call it over 
there. Whenever he peeled forth “Coal Oil” we 
boys would shout “What do you give your horse 
to drink ?” In a few minutes we got the answer 
to our question, “Coal Oil.” Needless to say 
many of the horses looked like it. 

Now there was one group of men who came 
around who didn’t have anything to sell. They 
even wanted to buy old rags, old bones, old 
bottles, etc. Quite often you would see these 
men at the close of the day, with a bulky and 
no doubt a heavy sack on their back, the gather¬ 
ings of the day, wending their way to a sorting 
headquarters. If they were of the more pros¬ 
perous class they would not be carrying their 
pack but be wheeling their treasure in a wheel- 




44 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


barrow or perhaps driving it along in a cart 
pulled by one horse. 

What do you suppose they did with these 
old rags? Well they sorted them over very 
carefully and then rebagged them and sent 
them under various classifications to the fac¬ 
tories, where they were repaid for their work. 
They were not rags then but raw material to be 
used in the business of the factory. Many of 
them went to the Carpet factory and were made 
up into carpets of one kind or another. Others 
were sent to a paper factory and made into pa¬ 
per of different qualities. The old bones were 
sent to other factories where they were ground 
up to powder and made into fertilizer for plants. 
So you see when we follow these rags and old 
bones to their destination we find that nothing 
is ever wasted that these men gather in their 
travels. 

The city of New York found out that there 
was money to be made in sorting out the rags 
from the garbage of the city. They had a regu¬ 
lar army working at this task. In one year they 
sorted out over 200,000 pounds of rags, and net¬ 
ted the city $75,000. 

Turn elsewhere and you will find that there 
is an effort made to save the waste in nature. 
God never wastes anything. The heavy rains 
fall in the springtime. We see them running 
away into the low lying places after the earth 
has drunk in all it can take but it is not wasted. 
The hot sun comes out and draws it up again 
and we get it back on another rainy day. The 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


45 


fruit trees and the flowers get all they want, 
and they give it back to us in the juice with 
which all fruit is full. More than 75 per cent 
of fruit is water in another form. God, our 
Heavenly Father never wastes, but practices 
economy everywhere. 

From nature take a look at large commer¬ 
cial concerns. They gather up the odds and ends 
and use them so that very little is wasted that 
can be saved. 

I had the privilege of seeing through one of 
our large packing plants some little time ago 
and was surprised to find the principle of econ¬ 
omy everywhere in evidence. Horns were used 
eventually in the making of buttons, combs, or 
were remounted on stands for hall racks; hoofs 
were made into glue. 

In a local bottling works, old corks which 
cannot be used for securely bottling essences or 
patent medicines, are resold to factories where 
cork washers are made for steam pipes and 
steam engines. They are glad to get them. 

Everywhere men realize the value of waste. 

A friend of the great THOS. A. EDISON 
on visiting Edison took him to task about hav¬ 
ing such a troublesome gate on the entrance to 
his garden. ‘‘Why don’t you grease your gate 
and see if it will work any better?” Edison 
smiled a few minutes and said, “Are you aware 
that every time that gate is opened it draws 
two pails of water into the cistern?” Economy 
again! 



46 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


1900 years ago there lived the most won¬ 
derful person the world ever knew. He was a 
great lover of boys and girls and young people 
On one occasion he showed that He would rath¬ 
er talk to young folks than to older people. His 
disciples were refusing little children the right 
to get near to Him, when He heard them, He 
rebuked them and gave the children the front 
place, and said, “Suffer little children to come 
unto Me.” I am sure that anybody popular with 
little folks would be popular with their fathers 
and mothers. They followed Him out to the 
wilderness to hear Him speak and didn’t realize 
until dinner time that they had nothing to eat. 
He took the little lunch that happened to be in a 
small boy’s basket and after He had blessed it 
He told them to sit down and eat, and he fed 
5000 people. He told his disciples to go around 
and gather up what remained, that nothing be 
wasted. They went out with baskets and gath¬ 
ered up 12 baskets full. The same principle 
again, “Save the Waste”! 

There are certain fragments that every 
boy and girl ought to save. Probably you do 
not think much about them but they are very 
important to your highest development. Gather 
up the fragments and use them and they will 
become great blessings in your lives. 

I. THRIFT. 

Save the odd nickels, and the dollar will 
take care of itself. I heard of a little fellow who 
had a savings bank of his own at home, and put 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


47 


into it every dime and nickel he could get. He 
didn’t think that one day his daddy was going 
to be out of work, and that the landlord would 
threaten to put them out of the house for the 
rent not being paid, and that his little box 
would just have enough to pay it and save the 
situation. But it happened that way. 

During the War we had a thrift campaign, 
and the government urged every boy and girl 
to buy Thrift Savings Stamps and help to fi¬ 
nance the country in her need. The Finance 
Department expressed their gratitude to every 
boy and girl who did so, because in this way mil¬ 
lions of dollars had been raised which would 
not have been forthcoming by other means. 

Many of our students are putting them¬ 
selves through High School and College by their 
own Thrift Campaign which they carry on all 
the time. 

II. TIME. 

Then there are the fragments of time. You 
do not realize it, but a lot of very valuable time 
is wasted every day by everybody. Our years 
are divided into weeks and days and minutes 
and seconds, for our convenience. There are 
over 31,000,000 seconds in a year, and what a 
lot can be done in a second. A light ray travels 
185,000 miles a second. A current of electricity 
goes even further than that. Our earth travels 
20 miles every second. 

So you see a lot can happen in a second, ap- 



48 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


parently so valueless. How about our seconds ? 
Horace Mann the New England Educator valued 
every minute and urged others to do the same. 
He said: “Lost, yesterday between the hours of 
sunrise and sunset, 2 golden hours set with 60 
golden minutes. No reward is offered for they 
are gone forever.” 

A German scholar worked his way to fame 
by studying languages while he hawked sauer 
kraut, and eventually mastered 14 different 
languages. Value your time and put into it 
everything you know, to get the most out of it. 

III. FRAGMENTS OF THOUGHT. 

Your thoughts are the things that are go¬ 
ing to mould your character in the future. 
Every boy has some idea of what he wants to 
become. Thinking about it and working to¬ 
wards it, he will realize it some day. Every good 
thought you encourage helps to make you big¬ 
ger and better every day. If you try to think 
about the Jesus ideal of life and keep thinking 
it every day in every affair of your life, some 
day the accumulation of these thoughts will 
round out a real Christian character, and send 
you forth on a life of great usefulness. 

Save the Waste. Get the most out of life 
and your life will be a very happy one every 
day that you live. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


49 


“DANGER SIGNALS.” 

Several years ago I chanced to be visiting 
in the beautiful city of Toronto and was staying 
with an old friend of mine, who hailed from the 
same native town. We were going out to his 
home in the suburbs towards 9 o’clock in the 
evening when we suddenly came to a place in 
the street where the cars had to detour to a side 
line in passing a bad place where the line was 
being extended and repaired. We came to a sud¬ 
den stop there for a minute or two until an¬ 
other car going the opposite way passed on the 
stub line built for the temporary convenience of 
the public. I looked out of the open window to 
see why we were held up and I saw away ahead 
a red lantern signifying danger. It is custom¬ 
ary to put out red lights or red flags in the day¬ 
time wherever there is danger so that people 
will not get into any accident, and that no lives 
will be lost. At all the railway crossings there 
is a danger signal for the same purpose, to pre¬ 
vent accidents great or small. 

L NOW IN THE REALM OF NATURE 
THERE ARE DANGER SIGNALS HUNG 
OUT FOR OUR GUIDANCE WHENEVER 
WE ARE IN DANGER OF INJURY. 

I came across a young girl a few weeks ago 
who had to leave*" school because she was 
threatened with loss of sight. She had been 
working too hard at her studies at night and the 
result was that her sight was impaired. The 



50 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


danger signals were out long before she left 
school but she did not heed them. Often she 
would have splitting headaches and be com¬ 
pelled to stop and lie down for awhile but did 
not stop long enough to do her eyes any good, 
so eventually she had to pay the price of her 
own heedlessness. When the danger signals are 
out warning you to stop a certain line of action, 
heed them before you are too late. 

Many boys and girls of great promise have 
ruined their whole future by overstrain. 

II. DANGER SIGNALS ARE HUNG UP FOR 

THE ATHLETE TO SEE. 

How many there are who do not know how 
much they can stand, and overtax their 
strength to their own regret. Nature can only 
stand so much strain and then must rest. If it 
does not do so it must go under with the strain. 

How necessary it is for every growing boy 
and girl to get the proper amount of sleep they 
require. Every growing boy and girl should be 
in bed by ten o'clock at night and get at least 9 
hours sleep. But how few do so. There are too 
many boys and girls who are allowed to run the 
streets at night instead of being in the house 
at some work more profitable for them in the 
future. When you get up in the morning tired 
out and your eyes like two burnt holes in a 
blanket, you know that it is a danger signal 
which kind Nature is hanging out for you to 
see and understand that you must get more rest 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


51 


to keep up your physical strength and your 
health unimpaired. 

III. THEN AGAIN DANGER SIGNALS ARE 

HUNG OUT FOR US IN ANOTHER 

REALM. 

Have you ever shuddered at words you 
knew you ought not to hear ? Or perhaps it was 
a conversation you engaged in which you knew 
was not such as you would want your mother 
or father to hear. What a strange feeling of 
condemnation came over you at that time and 
you couldn't explain it away. Listen, it was 
just the voice of your Heavenly Father within 
you warning you that you were on dangerous 
ground and that you ought to be moving to saf¬ 
er and more congenial surroundings. 

Those of you who have read the story of 
Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress will know that 
there was one place in the travels of Pilgrim, or 
Christian as he comes to be called, which gives 
him a great deal of trouble. It is when he comes 
on to the Enchanted Ground. His feet are tick¬ 
led with the sensation he feels, and before he 
realizes what has happened to him he finds that 
the spell of the Ground has overcome him and 
he is quite drowsy. He hadn’t realized that he 
was on such a dangerous place until it was al¬ 
most too late for him to retrace his footsteps. So 
it is with the places where boys and girls meet 
their temptations. We may never be conscious 
of danger ourselves but the little voice within 
will tell us of our danger if we listen intently to 



52 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


it. It is our danger signal and we should listen 
for “The Still Small Voice” 

On the sea coast on a foggy night you can 
hear awful noises out at sea, and if you have 
never heard them before you will be curious to 
know what they are. They are from helpless 
vessels in the fog, blowing a warning to others 
who may be near them that there is danger, and 
telling the other captains to go very slowly. 

How many lives have been saved by the 
diligent heeding of the fog horn. It is another 
danger signal. 

Heed the danger signals in your lives and 
they will save you from many moral and spirit¬ 
ual disasters. May God help you to do so. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


53 


DECOYS 

One day last Fall I was going along the 
street in the business section of the city when 
I was attracted to a certain store window which 
was decorated to represent a Fall scene in the 
country when the ducks are in season and the 
hunters are in their glory hunting them. There 
seemed to be everything in the window to make 
you think that the country had actually been 
moved into the city for that window The hunt¬ 
er was in the scene and in the artificial stream 
they had a duck floating around and the whole 
scene was life itself. I was particularly inter¬ 
ested in the duck which you know is called a 
decoy. 

Now the decoy is actually part of the hunt¬ 
er's equipment, and when he gets to a stream 
which is likely to be a resting place for the in¬ 
nocent ducks, he puts out the decoy, and as the 
ducks fly over the stream they see it floating 
around and are drawn to the same place to rest. 
No sooner are they down on the water than they 
are shot from ambush by the artful hunter— 
decoyed into losing their lives. 

I have often thought of the decoys in ac¬ 
tual life. What a lot of them there are doing 
their work so slyly and subtly as not to be sus¬ 
pected by the innocent boy and girl as they go 
to and fro in the world. 

I. MY FIRST DECOY IS ONE CALLED 

PLEASURE. 

Now this decoy is one of the most decep- 



54 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


tive in the world. Everybody likes pleasure of 
the right type, and this decoy camouflages it¬ 
self so as to be almost beyond detection from 
real pleasures which are healthy and full of 
satisfaction. 

A boy was starting out of the house one 
Sunday afternoon for Sunday School and as he 
passed through the wood shed at the back of 
the house he caught sight of his skates. They 
immediately suggested to him lots of fun at 
the rink and infinitely more fun than at the 
Sunday School, but then the question came up: 
how was he to get them out of the shed without 
being seen? As soon as he began thinking of it 
in that light another suggestion came to him, 
that he steal them out and put them under his 
coat until he got out of sight of the house and 
then he would be free to go and enjoy the after¬ 
noon skating. Well, he got them out all right 
and went to get the fun on the rink, but some¬ 
how or other he did not enjoy the skating 
as he had the day before. Something was 
wrong with the whole afternoon. He left 
the rink and went home. Sneaking his skates 
into the woodshed again he felt relieved that 
nobody came out just at the moment to see him 
putting them down in the comer, and that 
meant that he would not be suspected by his 
dad or mother, of not being at the Sunday 
School. But still he was not happy and he real¬ 
ized that he had been decoyed by the skates 
that gave him such fun on Saturday, but on 
Sunday had tricked him into doing something 
for further pleasure and had not given it to him. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


55 


Believe me boys and girls, he steered clear of 
the decoy the next Sunday. 

There are many decoys parading around 
to lure young folks away from church. In some 
places the moving pictures are allowed to oper¬ 
ate under the name of “Charity” and lure many, 
not only boys and girls, but parents, too, who 
have not been old fashioned enough not to 
be caught in the drag net in that way. 

II. THE DANCE HALL IS ANOTHER DE¬ 
COY. 

What a surface of show it has. Why to 
look into the dance hall one would imagine that 
all the real pleasure of life must certainly be 
located there. Is it? Well I have taken the 
trouble to analyse the experiences of a number 
of young people who have fallen in the world 
and have done something for which they must 
for years hang their heads, and their parents 
with them, and I find this: The dance hall has 
been the decoy which lured them in the first 
place to the pathway which spelt their ruin. 
There they met companions who were unscru¬ 
pulous, and made associations not of the best 
kind, and by these friendships found it very 
easy to go the same way as they were going, 
living fast and worthless lives. 

One thing the hunters tell me is this: They 
cannot decoy Wild Geese. They are too wise 
and wide awake to be caught in this way. They 
must lie out all night in the long grass to get 
geese, and then often after all night out they 



5|S PASTORS IDEAL SERMON BOOK 

make a false move and all is over so far as they 
are concerned with the geese. The geese do not 
regard the fact that the poor fellows were out 
in the damp grass and the cold night air all 
night. 

We can be wild enough to beat the decoy 
if we try to live near to Jesus Christ. Our Mas¬ 
ter lived in the midst of temptation—for that 
is what we call decoys in the spiritual life, and 
yet He was proof against them. Not only was 
He proof against them but when He was talking 
with His disciples He said many things that 
would lead us to believe that we can be proof 
against them too. “My Grace is sufficient for 
you.” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 
“Watch and Pray that you enter not into temp¬ 
tation,” and many other noble words, but they 
all lead us to this conclusion, that if we are true 
to Him He will guide us against the temptations 
which will overthrow us if we are not on the 
watch. 

Watch at all times for the decoys and no 
harm will befall you. May God help you to be 
watchful. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


57 


DIGGING. 

Now that the spring is coming I suppose 
that every boy and girl will be waiting until the 
time comes to get into the garden to help a little 
with the work of spading and seeding and all 
the work to be done in getting the ground and 
the garden stuff planted. No boy would want 
to sit around and see his Dad do all the hard 
work at nights after he has done a hard day's 
work before coming home. It is only right that 
he should do some of the work as his justifica¬ 
tion for eating so much of its produce during 
the year. 

It seems to run very vividly in my mind 
that at this time of the year the boys and girls 
of the senior grades of the public schools and 
all the grades of the High Schools are digging 
in another way. They are reminded that the 
examinations are coming on very soon and that 
they must get up their work so it will be im¬ 
possible for the examiner to set a question that 
they cannot answer. And digging is about the 
best name this preparation can be called. 

Everything worth anything in life has to 
be obtained by hard digging. No matter what 
you would be or have, you have to get it by the 
same method of dig, dig, dig. The Prince of 
the royal household comes here on a level with 
the son of the working man for there is no roy¬ 
al road to knowledge. 



58 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


I. NOW DIGGING REQUIRES PERSEVER¬ 
ANCE AND THIS IS THE FIRST THING 

I WISH TO SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT. 

Sheer hard work will ultimately bring out 
the success we long for, and perseverance is 
needed to do the “Sheer Hard Work.” 

I happened to pick up a book some little 
time ago which very much interested me. It 
was reciting some of the struggles that the 
great men of the world have had to obtain suc¬ 
cess. It was particularly enlightening and even 
inspiring. 

Who can estimate the grit and persever¬ 
ance it took to start at the tail end of life to 
write books to pay off a debt not really his own, 
and work night and day until he was through to 
success. But Sir Walter Scott did it, and even 
though blind, produced the Waverley Novels 
which rank among the world’s classics today. 

A young lad of 18 years of age left home 
to make his way in the world. He had but very 
little education, but he made up his mind to get 
one in the school of experience. For ten long 
eventful years he traveled here and there gain¬ 
ing a knowledge of life and then he settled 
down to his life’s work. “I had no other books 
than heaven and earth which are open to all” 
he said at a later date but from these he gath¬ 
ered a wealth of knowledge not often equalled. 
His ambition was to be a glass painter and an 
artist. He tried many experiments to discover 
how to make enamel, and failed time and time 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


59 


again. He built a furnace specially for the work 
and it was a failure too. But one day he met 
with success and his name was made for all 
time. It was that of Bernard Pallissy, whose 
home was in the south of France, but whose 
fame was world wide. 

Thos. A. Edison once said “I never do any¬ 
thing by accident that is really worth doing.” 
With this he coupled another remarkable say¬ 
ing as true as it is old. “If you would be a great 
man never look at the clock.” By which he 
meant that great achievements come not by 
people who live by the hour but by the people 
who are so persistent that they never think of 
the time. 

You no doubt have many times repeated 
the old rhyme, “If at first you don’t succeed try, 
try, try again.” And that means just Persevere 
—or Dig! 

II. NOW ANOTHER THOUGHT THAT 
CAME TO ME ABOUT DIGGING WAS 
THIS. TO MAKE A SUCCESS OF YOUR 
DIGGING, YOUR HEART MUST BE IN 
IT. 

I never yet heard of a boy doing anything 
he didn’t like to do and making a howling suc¬ 
cess of it. You must put your best effort into 
it. 


A humorous story, in fact one more humor¬ 
ous than true, is told of two men who had a 
grievance which they decided to settle in a 



60 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


fight. One was an Irishman and the other a 
Frenchman. They made the agreement that the 
one whipped would shout, “Enough.” The fight 
started and each went at it as hard as he could. 
The odds were with Pat who was certainly put¬ 
ting all the Irish that he had at his command in¬ 
to the fight. The Frenchman saw that he was 
getting the worst of the scrap and made up his 
mind that he would have to buckle in mighty 
hard if he was going to win out. So in he went 
as hard as he possibly could, and it was only a 
few minutes until Pat yelled out “Enough.” As 
soon as the fight was over the Frenchman rush¬ 
ed over to Pat and said “What was ze word you 
said?” To which Pat replied, “Enough.” “Well,” 
said the Frenchman, “I was trying to think of 
that for five minutes and couldn't think what 
it could be, so I had to get in and win because 
I didn’t know how to lose.” 

Whenever you do anything put your best 
into it. Make it a part of yourself and you will 
get all the more satisfaction out of it. 

III. AND LASTLY, LET ME SAY—KNOW 

WHAT YOU ARE DIGGING FOR. 

So many boys and girls in the world today 
are wasting a lot of valuable time digging where 
there is nothing worth digging for. Edward 
Everett was a man of great gifts and wonderful 
possibilities, but he marred his whole life by not 
having a goal at which to aim. Voltaire once 
spoke of another Frenchman as “an oven that 
was always heating but never cooked anything.” 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


61 


You must know what you’re digging for if you 
would ever expect to get it. 

Never allow your material digging to stop 
you in your digging for the best things of char¬ 
acter and life. You cannot afford to dig among 
the rubbish of the world. Life is too big and 
grand for all of you to ever spend it in un¬ 
healthy pursuits.' Dig for the best and the best 
will ultimately be yours. 



62 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


GAS MASKS. 

I wonder how many of my young friends 
have ever seen a thing like this. It is a Gas 
Mask which I was fortunate enough to receive 
from a returned veteran, a friend of mine. I 
understand from him that it was of great use 
during the recent war, in saving life when Fritz 
made a gas attack. Every soldier was equipped 
with a gas mask when he went up to the line, 
so that the moment a warning was sounded that 
gas was coming over each man would have some 
way of protecting himself This arrangement 
fitted tightly over the head and the nose and 
mouth so that it was impossible for any of 
Fritzie’s poison gas to get to the soldier wear¬ 
ing the mask. Connected to it was a tank which 
supplied him with the fresh air he needed. This 
tank was filled with a chemical preparation 
which purified the gas before the man breathed 
it. 


While I was thinking about this gas mask 
I could not help thinking about the need for a 
mask which boys could quickly slip on when a 
gas attack came to them. Boys are sometimes 
thrown, much against their will, into the com¬ 
pany of fellows whose hearts and mouths are 
foul and filthy. They have not been used to 
such conversation and shudder at the thought 
of the things said. They need a gas mask to 
save them. This time it is not a mask to cover 
their noses and their mouths, but their ears 
that they may not hear. There is an old say- 



PASTORS IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


63 


ing, “there are none so deaf as those who will 
not hear,” and I believe it is true. It is possi¬ 
ble to close one’s ears to these attacks. Then 
again, I believe that a secret prayer will bring 
the help we need right near to us and fortify 
us against the attack. 

I. WE NEED TO HAVE ON A GAS MASK 
WHEN WE ARE THROWN INTO THE 
COMPANY OF THOSE WHO ARE USING 
BAD LANGUAGE. 

It is not always easy to escape and surely 
Our Heavenly Father has provided a way of 
fighting it. We may be in the world but not of 
it. Little boys are generally all ears, and eager 
to hear what big folks are saying, and some¬ 
times they hear things that it would have been 
better if they had been deaf at the time they 
heard them. 

It is said that one day Mr. Wedgewood, the 
owner of the factory making the famous 
Wedgewood China, was showing a supposed 
friend around the plant. The man was so de¬ 
lighted at the sights that he saw, that he could 
not find words in the language to express him¬ 
self and began to use very bad language, much 
to the disgust of Mr. Wedgewood. As he swore, 
the man addressed himself to a most beautiful 
vase. Mr. Wedgewood immediately knocked it 
out of his hand and it fell to the floor, broken 
into a great many pieces. When asked for an 
explanation, he said “My little son has heard 
every word you have said and you have done 



64 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


him an injury which cannot be compared to the 
petty value of the vase you have so foully tried 
to describe." Mr. Wedgewood knew that the 
little fellow didn't have any gas mask on. He 
just had to stand and be poisoned by what he 
heard. Try and turn a deaf ear to any talk 
which you know will not help you to be better. 

II. IT IS A VERY GOOD PLAN TO HAVE 
YOUR GAS MASK ON WHEN A 
TROUBLE MAKER COMES ALONG AND 
WOULD FILL YOUR MIND WITH UN¬ 
KIND STORIES ABOUT ONE OF YOUR 
LITTLE CHUMS. 

Do not listen to trash which makes you 
feel badly and always makes you think less of 
your playfellows. Put on your gas mask. 

A brave little girlie was being tucked away 
in her little bed one night by her mother who 
had just kissed her ‘Good-Night,' when she 
called her mother to her and said “Mother I was 
a little peace-maker today." The mother at 
once became quite interested and asked if she 
intervened in a little misunderstanding between 
two of her chums. “No mother I didn't do that," 
she said, and answered one question after an¬ 
other in the same way until her mother asked 
her to explain, and she said, “Well I just heard 
something unkind about one of my playmates 
and I forgot it and didn’t tell anybody about it.” 
The mother heart was overcome with joy. She 
knew that the little girl had sealed her lips and 
would not tell anything which would hurt an- 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


65 


other. In this case the story had got under the 
mask—into her ears against her will, but she 
just did the best thing she knew, and could have 
done. She didn't tell it to anybody. If you can¬ 
not say anything good do not say anything bad. 
So may you be able to wear your gas mask in all 
times of danger and attacks by the enemy of 
your own purity, and thus save yourself from 
a great deal of heavy-heartedness and regret. 



66 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


“NO CORNS WITH OLD SHOES.” 

I suppose you are wondering what we are 
going to talk about this morning with this pair 
of old shoes before us. Well they are a pair of 
friends of mine, that I wish to introduce to you. 
You know there are some of our acquaintances 
that give us cause for silence, and we do not 
wish to say very much about them. These are 
real friends and give us comforts which do not 
come very often. One man has said, “There are 
no friends like the old friends,” and of course 
everybody agrees with him. Some little time 
ago I was talking to a friend of mine and he 
told me that he could hardly bear one of his 
shoes on his foot, it was rubbing hard against 
one toe and had already caused a very painful 
corn to develop. He was feeling quite blue a- 
bout it because he had paid a good price for the 
shoes and it seemed that he would not be able 
to wear them. I looked at the shoes and I soon 
found out the reason why he was having trouble 
with them. They were, first of all, too small, 
and in the second place, they were not a fit 
shape for any man’s feet. So I concluded that 
he would have been better off if he had stayed 
with the old design and style which brought 
comfort. 

These are days, boys and girls, of new-fash¬ 
ioned things. Everybody at times seems to be 
lured towards something new in the fashions, 
and often they are not at all satisfied with them 
when they get them. We cannot afford to sacri- 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


67 


fice comfort and happiness in order to be in the 
fashion. 

There are many new-fashioned religions in 
the world today. Like many other fashions 
they do not give comfort, but only give dissatis¬ 
faction, and often pain. This leads me to think 
of the old-fashioned faiths which give to every¬ 
body the happiness which they ought to get out 
of their religion. 


I. WE FIND GREAT COMFORT IN OUR BE¬ 
LIEF IN GOD. 

“I believe in God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of Heaven and Earth, Who in Holy Love 
sustains all that is.” Happy are the boy and girl 
who are brought up to believe in God as their 
great Provider and Keeper. You know there 
are some people in the world who do not believe 
in a God at all. 

The story is told of a certain man of this 
type who was so pronounced in his ideas that 
there was no God, that he put up a sign in his 
room: “God is NCWHERE.” It remained there 
for a while, and very little was said about it. 
One day his little girl, whose mother had al¬ 
lowed her to go to Sunday School, came in and 
said, “Daddy, I can spell that line over a differ¬ 
ent way from what you spell it—listen to me 
and see if I can't.” So she began and he listened 
intently, G-O-D—GOD. I-S—is N-O-W—now 
H-E-R-E—here. The man stopped and looked 
at it again and he was so dumbfounded at the 



68 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


way she read it, that he realized it was true, and 
he believed in God forever after. 

If you want to be sure there is a God just 
think of the wonderful world in which we live. 
How regular are the seasons, Spring, Summer, 
Autumn and Winter. There is a wonderful 
regularity in what happens in the year. We 
never get the seasons out of their order, nor do 
we get seeding in the fall or harvesting in the 
spring. Seed time, rain and sunshine, ripening, 
and then harvest time, and the order is ever the 
same. Surely we cannot do anything else than 
believe in a loving and caring God behind every¬ 
thing, and that belief will give great comfort to 
every boy and girl in the living of their lives 
day by day. 

You will not have the uncomfortable feel¬ 
ing that others have who do not believe in God, 
if you keep this old-fashioned belief in your 
heart. 

II. WE WANT TO GET THE GREATEST 
AMOUNT OF GOOD OUT OF LIFE, AND 
TO DO THIS WE MUST KNOW HOW TO 
LIVE GOOD. 

We must believe in Jesus Christ as our 
Saviour and Our Helper. In the Gospel of St. 
John it says, "God so loved the world that He 
gave, etc.” It is astonishing the number of peo¬ 
ple who have come to believe in Jesus as their 
Saviour, and have found peace and happiness 
in life. Some time ago I talked with an old 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


69 


saint who had been a Christian for 40 years 
and was about to die, and she said that she be¬ 
lieved in Jesus and that there was nothing to 
worry about. 

Some people are very much concerned 
about getting new fangled ideas about Jesus. 
They tell us that He was no better than we are, 
and that he was not the Saviour of the World, 
that He was not any more than a great teacher 
although He was the best teacher the world has 
ever known. Such people are the most miser¬ 
able to meet. They have corns that always give 
them pains, and never stop to think how happy 
they were when they said and believed, “I be¬ 
lieve in Jesus Christ My Saviour.” 

III. WE MUST BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE AS 

THE WORD OF GOD. 

It is our book of instructions on the subject 
of how to live. It may seem to be old-fashioned 
to say you believe the Bible from cover to cover, 
but when you read the Bible and get the inspira¬ 
tion it brings to your life you will not worry 
about some of the things, called old-fashioned. 
Abraham Lincoln once said that if you accept as 
much of the Bible on reason as you can, and 
then accept the rest on faith, you will not only 
live happy but you will die happy. 



70 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


“DREAMS THAT COME TRUE.” 

I feel quite sure that every boy and girl 
in the congregation this morning knows some¬ 
thing about dreams. You have all gone to sleep 
at night and before you have been asleep very 
long you are off on a big hunt or an expedition, 
or you are being hunted or falling from the top 
of a very high building, or undergoing some 
other experience. The funny part about the 
whole thing is that the experiences are just as 
real as if you were actually going through them. 
You wake up just scared to death when you 
think you are being chased by a bandit or a bear 
or imagine something exciting is happening to 
you. 


The story is told of two tramps or hoboes 
who were sleeping in a hay mow one night when 
in the middle of the night one of them awoke 
with an awful start and in waking up he very 
nearly scared his mate to death. Both sat up 
and looked at each other, then the mate said, 
“What's the matter Bill?” To which Bill re¬ 
plied, “Oh nothing, only I dreamt I was work¬ 
ing.” 

Now there are other dreams than these, 
about which I wish to speak. There are two 
kinds of dreams—dreams of the night and 
dreams of the day—our sleeping and our wak¬ 
ing dreams. Much that is interesting could be 
said about our sleeping dreams but a great deal 
more could be said about the dreams of the day¬ 
time. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


71 


Every normal boy and girl has dreams now 
and again, in the broad daylight, of what they 
wish to become when they are grown men and 
women. Some wish to be lawyers, others doc¬ 
tors or preachers or business men at the head 
of large business concerns. I am sorry for the 
boy or girl who does not have dreams such as 
these. It is invigorating to have thoughts of 
future like these, and often means the putting 
of power into a boy or girl by which he or she 
goes out and realizes the dream in later years. 
The Bible tells that the old men shall see visions 
and the young men shall dream dreams, and it 
is as true today as ever it was. 

We live by our dreams—they are the driv¬ 
ing power of our lives. The dreamer is the most 
capable man of business, the most practical of 
politicians, the most arresting of preachers. It 
is because so few have dreams of what things 
ought to be that the chariot wheels of life are 
stuck in a rut, out of which it seems impossible 
to raise them. Everything in the world is dead 
if there is no dream of the future connected 
with it. The great men of the past have been 
men who had dreams of what life could become 
if lived properly. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses, and 
Abraham were all men of the dream life of the 
future. 

The dreams of men come true when they 
are in line with a great plan. Columbus dis¬ 
covered America before his fleet left the port to 
look for it. He had in his dreams, a new world. 

The Pilgrim Fathers had founded the 



72 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


American Republic before the Mayflower cast 
off from Plymouth. 

Edison heard the phonograph singing in 
his mind long before we heard it in our ears. 

These were dreams that came true. 

Lincoln had a dream that one day the black 
race would be no longer slaves. His dream came 
true. 

There are one or two things I want you to 
notice, boys and girls, in connection with this 
talk this morning. 


I. WHENEVER GOD PUTS A DREAM INTO 
YOUR HEART AND MIND, OF WHAT 
YOU CAN BECOME, IT IS THE SAME 
AS IF HE HAD SAID TO YOU, “I EX¬ 
PECT YOU TO BECOME THIS.” 

It is a responsibility resting upon your 
shoulders, to go out and try to realize the 
dream. John G. Paton had a feeling that God 
was going to use him for the winning of the 
South Sea Isles for Jesus Christ, and he went 
out to try to bring it to pass. 

Bunyan was cast into prison and for a time 
he thought that he was done for, so far as doing 
good was concerned, until one day he dreamt 
that he could write the story of the Gospel in 
a way in which he could do as much good, and 
as a result we have the “Pilgrim’s Progress”— 
but it took a dream to do it. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


73 


The men of the Bible were given dreams 
of what could be if they did their part in work¬ 
ing them out, and as soon as they tried, the 
dreams came true. If God has put a dream in¬ 
to your heart of what you can become, don’t run 
away from it—work with it, and God, the giver, 
will help you realize it. 

When God puts dreams into our heads and 
hearts, He almost says to us that if we do not 
carry them out, we are not only poorer our¬ 
selves but others are poorer because we have 
fallen down on the job of being His channels 
of good to the world. I am quite sure that not 
one of our young folks would fail me if I seri¬ 
ously asked you to do something for the church, 
if it was in your power to carry it through. 

Now here is a little dream story, and with 
this I will close. Once upon a time there lived 
a race of people who were needing direction and 
guidance about how to live. Nobody wanted 
particularly to give up his own work of making 
money, to become a preacher of ideals to these 
people, and the task seemed almost hopeless. 
It was feared in heaven, that for want of a real 
man with a vision of what these people could 
become, they were doomed to be lost. One 
night a man had a very restless night and could 
not sleep. He heard, or imagined he heard 
voices calling him all the time to do this very 
kind of work, and eventually, as the morning 
drew near, he rose up and said, “Here am I, 
Lord, send me.” He had a dream of what he 
could do for this people and he felt that if he 
did not obey the direction of the dream, he 



74 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


would be making other people poorer, so he 
took up the work of his dream and God richly 
blessed him in the years that followed. 

If you have dreams of a better world, filled 
with better boys and girls who are living true 
to Jesus you must try to make your dreams 
come true by working for that end. May God 
help you. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


75 


“CLAY MEN” 

(To give effect to this storyette, it is well 
to have some plasticene with you, and make one 
or two little men and women, an auto or house 
or other thing such as will keep the interest and 
aid you in making the story of real practical 
value.) 

During the week, boys and girls, I was 
wondering what I might say to you this morn¬ 
ing, and the thought of plasticene men came in¬ 
to my mind so I got some plasticene and began 
making men as you see I have them with me 
this morning. Just while I was making these 
funny little men, I stopped to look into my 
Bible to see if it had any word to say about clay 
men, and I found in the old book of Job these 
words: “Thou hast made me of clay.” So I got 
my line on this subject—“Clay men.” 

During the past few years this material 
called plasticene has been used in the primary 
departments of all up-to-date schools, not only 
to keep the tiny tots occupied, but to teach some 
little lessons of life to them. They make little 
dogs and cats, ships, automobiles, men and wo¬ 
men, and no doubt have lots of fun doing so. 
Very often the funniest of all the things they 
make are the little men and women, for who 
ever heard of clay men. 

Away back in the Old Testament times 
there lived a man with a great long name who 
used to like to go down to the workshop of a 
potter, that is a man who made his living by 



76 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


making models and selling them, and he tella 
us this story. One day, he says, when he was 
there he saw the potter working carefully at 
a vase or ornament, and he was carefully carv¬ 
ing at it when all in an instant he slipped and 
his chisel chipped off what was one of the most 
important parts of the vase and it seemed to 
be ruined so far as any further use was con¬ 
cerned. He watched him and wondered what 
he would do, and in a while he saw the potter 
chisel away at the broken part and keep on 
working until he had made another vessel out 
of the spoiled one, and it was not lost at all. If 
it hadn’t been clay, as it was in those days, and 
rather soft, before it was burned to give it hard¬ 
ness, the potter couldn’t have done that with it. 
And the story says, “He made it again another 
vessel.” 

Now I want you to think, boys and girls, of 
your lives as the clay, and you are the potters. 
You can make your lives just what you want 
them to be. You are pliable yet, and can make 
your lives beautiful and useful, but on the other 
hand you can spoil them and make them ugly 
and useless. Notice this clay man here. I can 
put a kink into him and make him any shape I 
wish to; and so it is with you—You are shap¬ 
ing yourselves today into the kind of men and 
women you are going to be tomorrow. 

Don’t grow up with a clay will. There are 
so many people in the world who have clay wills; 
they never have a will of their own—cannot 
think for themselves—always have to have 
other people think for them. I have been told, 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


77 


on very good authority, that the overhead ex¬ 
pense of many large businesses is largely made 
up of superintendence charges in one way or 
another. That is, over every so many there has 
to be someone who will tell them what to do in 
case they do not do their work right. Have a 
will of your own if you want to get to the top 
of the ladder of life. 

What about the habits you are forming in 
your lives? It is easy now to tear down any 
habits that are making a home with you, but 
it will not be so easy in a few years time, when 
they are firmly rooted and there to stay. Your 
lives are the clay and you are the moulders of 
the finished product. Take care what kind of a 
product it will be. 

Sometime ago I was talking to a man who 
was lamenting his lost opportunities. He said 
to me, with a note of inward sorrow in his 
voice, “I wish I could go to school again. If 
I had my time to live over again, I certainly 
would make better use of it than I did then. I 
would see to it that I got a good education.” 

That led me to think of you boys and girls, 
and gave me this word of advice for you. Your 
school days are yours now. It may seem tedious 
to have to go to school every day and go over 
the same lessons day after day, but it is all to 
prepare you for the larger tasks of life which 
will confront you as you grow towards manhood 
and womanhood. Take my advice, and get all 
the education you can while the opportunities 
are yours. 



78 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


Two or three boys of years ago have their 
names continually before me for my inspiration. 

One fellow determined to get an education. 
His parents couldn’t afford to send him to school 
to get much of a start. What did he do? He 
went all over the neighborhood and borrowed 
books (and he did what many people today for¬ 
get to do, he took them back after he had read 
them). He simply devoured the matter they 
contained. At night, after it became too dark 
to read, he stretched out in front of the fire, 
and with the aid of the red fire glow he was 
able to read a little longer. He kept up the 
search for knowledge, and one day when they 
were looking for a President for the United 
States they offered it to the lad who had made 
himself fit to guide the affairs of State. 

The second in my mind is a young lad who 
left home at the age of eighteen to make his 
way in the world. He had only a few pieces of 
colored chalk in his possession with which to 
sketch and make his living. He tramped all 
over France and finally he settled to his life’s 
work. He gave himself to sculpture of one kind 
or another, and today the finest works of this 
kind that France possesses are finished off at 
the bottom with the name of Bernard Pallissy, 
He got where he wanted to be because he seized 
every opportunity that came his way. 

Wellington said that the Battle of Water¬ 
loo was won by the men who had gone to Eton 
and obtained an education. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


79 


Now the third and most important thought 
I wish to leave with you is this—it is more im¬ 
portant than habits or getting an education— 
it is just this: Make your character secure by 
giving yourself to Jesus Christ. Let Him mould 
you after the pattern He desires you to be. It 
is noticeable that when Jesus moulds the life of 
a boy or girl or man or woman he always puts 
in strong qualities of character. 

Jesus changed the name of one of his dis¬ 
ciples after He saw the change that religion 
had made to his life. 

When God saw that there was to be a great 
change in the life of one of the men of old, He 
changed his name from Jacob, the sneak, to 
Israel, the chosen of God. 

It is said that those who had the privilege 
of listening to Mr. Gladstone were always im¬ 
pressed with the Christlikeness about him. He 
had been moulded by the Divine Potter. 

Then this Old Testament character noticed 
that the potter when he failed did not give up 
in despair but made the vessel into something 
other than what he had intended in the first 
place. Don't get discouraged when you fail the 
first time at anything. Just keep on trying and 
eventually you will come out on top. Don't al¬ 
low your face to bear the marks of evil, as it 
eventually moulds every life into which it gets. 
I heard a learned professor once say that God 
shaped our faces from childhood until we be¬ 
gan choosing for ourselves what kind of face 



80 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


we wanted to have, and then He handed over 
the whole arrangement to us. May God help 
you, every boy and girl, to let Jesus mould your 
character and make you really worth while men 
and women. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


81 


QUICKSANDS. 

Those of you who have lived at the seaside 
or have visited there will know at once what I 
mean when I say I wish to speak to you about 
quicksands. For the benefit of those who have 
never been to the seaside let me explain as 
briefly as I possibly can what quicksands are. 
You may be in the water paddling, and feel 
quite secure on the sand bottom when all of a 
sudden you feel your feet beginning to sink and 
you go down, down, down, over your ankles in 
no time at all. You will of course realize that 
you had better get out of that place as quickly 
as possible. If you do not do so you will before 
long be completely out of sight. 

Now there is a reason why these so-called 
quicksands are present at certain places and 
not at others. It is said to be due to the pres¬ 
ence of clay which holds the moisture in a cer¬ 
tain area and makes the sand very soft and al¬ 
most like liquid. Some regard the presence of 
quicksands as being an indication of the pres¬ 
ence of calcium carbonate. However, we know 
the sand is there, and do not need to worry our¬ 
selves about how it got there. 

As I think of quicksands, I am conscious 
that there are moral quicksands which you boys 
and girls need to be warned about, and if I did 
not tell you of some of them I would not be 
playing fair with you. Let us see. 



82 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


I. THERE ARE THE QUICKSANDS 

CALLED BAD COMPANIONS WHICH 

SURROUND BOYS AND GIRLS. 

You have no idea how treacherous these 
sands are to the innocent boy and girl. In a 
very short time they can completely swamp the 
good intentions of your lives and make you help¬ 
less. I well remember when a boy in my teens, 
that a very vicious person came into my life 
who tried to entice me into a life of shame and 
vice. I was almost overcome by this soothsayer, 
and was beginning to like his company. It was 
very flattering to have one much older than 
myself for a “companion” and I felt quite proud 
of myself. There came a day, however, before 
too late, when I saw through his game and 
made up my mind that I was not going to be 
swamped by him. But how could I do it? How 
was I to get away from this viper who had such 
a hold upon me? Talk about sinking in quick¬ 
sands, I was sinking with that fellow quicker 
than any boy ever went down in sand. My 
chance came. He was waiting for me one eve¬ 
ning at the door of the store where I was em¬ 
ployed, and I struck out towards him and this 
is what I said: “I’m not going with you any 
more. I’m going to be a minister some day.” 
What made me say that, I do not know to this 
day, but I am today the realization of the words 
I said to him, and do not regret it for a minute. 
But where might I have been if I had not got 
out of that quicksand? 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


83 


II. THEN THERE IS THE QUICKSAND 

KNOWN AS OUR TEMPTATIONS. 

It is astonishing how many boys and girls 
sink in the midst of temptations, when they 
could have surmounted them if they had only 
been watchful all the time. 

My mind carries me back very swiftly, over 
the years, to my boyhood days again, when I 
learned one of the best lessons of my life, and 
yet one of the most painful lessons I ever had 
taught me. Out with my boy chums one after¬ 
noon we were without anything of a funny na¬ 
ture to read, and decided to get a funny paper 
from the door of a news-shop, and I was the 
one who was to get it. I drew up close to the 
rack of papers outside and in a few minutes 
had the paper tucked up under my sweater and 
we were away for the rest of the afternoon's 
reading and merriment. We read the paper all 
through, but it was not as interesting to me as 
I had thought it would be. Something told me 
I had done wrong, and I felt condemned. When 
I got home the news was there before me, and 
I was soundly punished for my wrong-doing. 
Shortly afterwards the same temptation was 
presented to me, but the memory of the remorse 
of the former yielding made me quickly hurry 
away from those who would make me do wrong 
again. I felt I was on dangerous ground and if 
I didn’t get out of that place I would sink. 
Since that time, I have always tried to let the 
little inner voice dictate to me when I felt in 
the presence of Temptation. Beware of the 



84 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


quicksands in which so many sink, never to 
rise again. 

Jesus has a promise to every boy and girl 
who wants to live for Him in the world, and 
He says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you. 
I will be with you at all times.” Why not give 
over your life to Jesus who has promised so 
much to every boy and girl and who is able to 
keep us from falling, even in the severest of 
temptations ? 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


85 


CARRIER PIGEONS. 

(It is advisable to have with you, in pre¬ 
senting this talk to the Junior congregation a 
drawing of the aluminum tube or case with the 
little wire which clips around the pigeon’s leg, 
or else the real article itself if one can be se¬ 
cured.) 

You have all seen pigeons and you know 
that they are always among our nicest domes¬ 
ticated birds. They get to be quite tame and 
can aften be fed by the owner out of his hand. 
While you have seen them flying around the 
neighborhood, you probably did not know that 
they could fly very great distances, and fly very 
quickly, too. Some time ago, a pigeon, with a 
ring on its leg proving it to be the property of 
a pigeon fancier in the heart of England, was 
found in Italy. The man, with whose pigeons 
it had associated, had gone into the pigeon pen, 
caught it to see where it had come from, and 
communicated with the owner in England for 
verification of number, and found the tally ab¬ 
solutely genuine, and that the pigeon had flown 
all that distance in a very short time. A com¬ 
mon pastime among fanciers, is to take their 
pet birds away on the train to some town far 
off and then let them all go free at the same 
time to see whose birds can get home first. Com¬ 
petitions are regularly held in which great in¬ 
terest is centered. 

During the war it was found that pigeons 
could render great service as messengers be- 



86 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


tween camps considerable distance apart. The 
War Department arranged to have light alum¬ 
inum cases about one inch in length and one- 
fourth inch in diameter in tube form, with light 
rings attached to them, to wrap around the 
pigeon's leg; and inside these little cases were 
placed the messages which the officials of one 
section wished to send to another. Of course 
sometimes they went astray, but according to 
authorities were so successful on the whole as 
to warrant their continuance, and in this way 
the Carrier Pigeon helped to win the war. 

Now it seems to me, boys and girls, that we 
can all learn life lessons from the faithful car¬ 
rier pigeons. 

I. WE ALL CARRY WITH US MESSAGES 

OF ONE KIND OR ANOTHER. 

You can tell as soon as a boy or girl be¬ 
gins to speak just what kind of boy or girl he 
or she is. It is also true of grown folks. Mes¬ 
sages go out from your life and mine to others, 
and influence them for good or ill. 

There once lived a man by the name of 
Phillips Brooks and of him it was said that he 
never went down the street on a rainy day but 
the sun seemed to shine after he had passed 
by. He carried with him the right kind of 
message. 

Everybody likes to meet the cheery boy or 
girl who radiates good cheer and wholesome¬ 
ness every day. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


87 


The pigeon fanciers who are always on the 
look-out for stray birds, have a way of enticing 
them to their particular pen. They paint the 
wings of their own birds with a very attractive 
perfume and then send them out to fly around 
the stranger and as soon as he gets a whiff 
of the perfume it draws him to them, and they 
all fly around together and eventually come 
down together, and the stranger is made a pris¬ 
oner until it is safe to let him out, knowing that 
he will not fly away to his former home. That’s 
quite a trick and it works. Isn’t it just as feasi¬ 
ble to think of good boys and girls having such a 
genuine fragrance of goodness about them as 
to attract others to them, to their church and 
to their Sunday School and to their company? 
If you carry your message aright it can be so. 
How splendid if every Sunday School boy and 
girl would make the good things so predomin¬ 
ant that every other boy and girl would want 
to be like them and go to Sunday School. 

II. THE MESSAGES THESE PIGEONS CAR¬ 
RIED WERE ALWAYS MESSAGES 

TELLING WHAT TO DO TO OFFSET 

THE ENEMY IN HIS PLANS. 

I wonder if boys who are big and almost 
grown up could not be like these pigeons in 
this way to their younger brothers ? You know 
you have been through quite a little that prob¬ 
ably worried you a great deal, and you didn’t 
know how to decide the matter before you. 
You didn’t want to ask your father or your 
mother, and went ahead yourself, and more by 



88 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


good luck than good judgment you struck the 
right road. Your younger brothers have to 
pass over the same road. Warn them in a kind¬ 
ly way and prepare them for the temptations 
before them. In this way you can be carrier 
pigeons with a saving message for the little 
folks who have to meet dangerous places. 

III. THE CARRIER PIGEONS ALSO CAR¬ 
RIED MESSAGES TELLING OF LOYAL¬ 
TY TO THE KING. 

Every message, no matter how crowded, 
had on the bottom—“God Save the King.” 

I am sure that every boy and girl would 
like the message of their lives to be outstand¬ 
ingly a message of loyalty to the best things 
worth living for. You have no idea of the pow¬ 
er for good your life can be in the world if your 
influence is just this—“Loyalty to the King of 
Kings.” Jesus wants you to be his messengers, 
and depends upon you to carry his message 
wherever you go. If a pigeon failed to get 
there with the message there was always a 
gap left. Some direction was missing which 
handicapped those who just needed it to guide 
them; and so it may be with the word and the 
kind thought your life can give, if you with¬ 
hold it. You wouldn’t fall down on a task so 
important, would you? 

May God help you to be real messengers for 
the Truth as it is in Jesus Christ. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


89 


“A BOY FOR SALE.” 

I well remember, many years ago, going to 
my first sale by public auction. It was on a 
farm where a farmer, having decided to retire 
from the farm, was offering, through an auc¬ 
tioneer, everything he had for sale. If you ever 
want to see a variety of things sold, go to a 
farm sale. That day they sold everything from 
halters and old rope, no good to anybody, to 
curry combs for horses and stew kettles for 
the housewife and gramophone needles and 
records. Such a variety as they had that day 
would have made the old curiosity shop green 
with envy. And people had come from far and 
near to bid on and buy the articles offered for 
sale. 


The farmer, on this occasion to which I re¬ 
fer, was a big jovial fellow and was going here 
and there, first telling some enquirer how old 
certain horses were (several years before), then 
to another how certain pieces of machinery 
worked. I overheard him say to one question 
asked, ‘Til sell anything I’ve got if I get my 
price for it.” The man, who was a bit of a 
wag, pointed to the farmer’s boy who was 
standing close by and said, “How much for 
this fellow?” to which the farmer replied—“Oh, 
he’s not for sale, but he wouldn’t bring much 
if he was.” 

I started thinking at that time about the 
boys who were for sale. You say, “Surely they 
don’t sell boys anywhere in this country. Sla- 



90 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


very was abolished many years ago. They do 
not sell boys today.” Which of course is all true 
as you think of it. But it is also true in the 
way I am thinking of it, that there are boys 
who are not only for sale but are bought every 
day they live. They put the price on themselves 
and are being bought at their own price. 

A boy is bought when he agrees to do 
something which he knows is wrong, but for 
which he hopes to get something for himself. 
Let me explain to you what I mean:- 

Some years ago a certain man wanted to 
make a gain in a speculation, and he had to do 
it at the expense of another man who was a 
competitor in the same line of business. He 
wanted certain information about his competi¬ 
tor, and thought of this way to get it. His op¬ 
ponent had a young son, and he made up his 
mind to get the information from him regard¬ 
ing his father’s affairs. He got him to go out 
with him to a show one night and treated him 
to all kinds of things afterwards. Then he put 
up the plan to him—to go and find out what 
his father had put down in his correspondence 
as his price for the contract, and let him know 
so that he could undersell him. The lad 
thought for awhile. He knew it wouldn’t be 
right, but think of the good time he could have 
with the money the man was going to give him 
for the information. He yielded and gave away 
the information, and the man outdid his father 
in the estimate, but no sooner had he given 
the facts away than he felt condemned, because 



PASTOITS IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


91 


he knew that he had sold himself, and had 
wronged his own father at the same time. 

Just think—a boy sold—and in a free 
country where it is against the law to sell boys 
as slaves, and this boy had willingly sold him¬ 
self. 

Now there are some things which cannot 
be sold without very seriously lessening the 
value to the seller. 

I. NO BOY CAN AFFORD TO SELL HIS 

GOOD NAME. 

It is said that during the Prohibition cam¬ 
paign in the United States, the liquor men ap¬ 
proached lawyer Chas. E. Hughes and offered 
him a cheque for 150,000 dollars, to test the 
constitutionality of the Liquor Act in the 
courts. Mr. Hughes replied when he refused 
their cheque, “I would not champion your cause 
for all the money you could name”. They next 
went to Ex-President Taft and offered him a 
blank cheque telling him he could fill it in for 
any amount he wished if he would test and win 
their case. Mr. Taft replied, “You could not 
pile gold high enough to induce me to take your 
case before the public, for I would have you 
know that my conscience is not for sale”. 

These men were not for sale. They valued 
their character more than money. 

II. NO BOY CAN AFFORD TO SELL THE 

TRUTH. 

Your word must always be your honor. A 



92 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


boy was one day called into the office of his 
employer who was a very unscrupulous man, 
and cared nothing for honor and principles. 
The young lad was told that he must tell a cer¬ 
tain thing about some of the articles offered in 
the sale and was warned against telling any¬ 
one that it was only old stock they were getting 
rid of. After the lad had received his orders 
he gave in his notice that he was leaving that 
night and said, “Sir, I cannot tell a lie like that 
My conscience would condemn me all the night 
long if, during the day, I was deceiving the pub¬ 
lic.” He was not allowed to quit. On the other 
hand he was given an increase in salary because 
he had refused to sell himself in trying to sell 
goods for an unscrupulous master. It paid 
him to be honest and not sell himself. The 
world takes off its hat to the boy who cannot 
be bought. 

III. NO BOY CAN AFFORD TO SELL HIS 

GOOD NAME. 

I think a great deal of every boy who re¬ 
gards the honorable name of his family in 
every transaction he enters into. One very 
great man lived many years ago who said, “He 
who steals my purse steals trash but he who 
steals my good name steals everything.” And 
he was right. How sorry I have felt for some 
boys of whom I have heard, when it was said, 
“You know it's too bad but they were not 
brought up to do such things. How their father 
sorrows over the way they have turned out.” 
And so on. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


93 


In my boyhood days I knew a boy whose 
father was a Sunday School Superintendent, 
and a splendid man, respected all over the town 
for his good life, and this boy evidently thought 
that the best he could do was to bring disgrace 
to the family name. He started out on a life of 
vice and brought ruin on the home. His father 
was not spared to them very long and this gave 
him an added chance to run wild. He finished 
his career, so far as I knew him, not quite a 
jail bird, but worse than that, without anyone 
who would trust him with any position at all, 
and an outcast because he had sold himself to 
the evil forces of life. 

Remember boys, your good name is every¬ 
thing you have, and you cannot barter it away 
without being very much the poorer for doing 
so. 

Keep your eye on the things that cannot be 
sold and you will be what I wish you to be— 
true as steel and a credit to all connected with 
you. 



94 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


SAFETY FIRST. 

When I was traveling on a street car the 
other day, I noticed a sign pasted on the door 
which said—“Safety First.” I had travelled on 
the street car many times before and no doubt 
had noticed that sign many times but somehow 
or other it impressed me as having a deeper 
meaning than the one for which it was placed 
in the doorway of the car. Of course I quite 
realize the importance of the notice in the cars, 
and am sure it serves as a good reminder to 
those who are inclined to be reckless, that there 
is danger in taking risks either in getting on 
or off the car. 

Some years ago I had a friend who was a 
telegraph operator and every time he wrote out 
a train order for a train due to arrive at his 
station, he always had at the head of the order 
the words “Safety First.” This meant to the 
observing engine driver that at all times he 
must consider the safety of the people who were 
travelling in his train, and who were entrusted 
to his care. 

So those words can be taken out of the 
street cars and off the heading of the train or¬ 
der, and made to have a great moral meaning 
for us today. If we ignore them we are taking 
the responsibility of ruin upon our own shoul¬ 
ders. 

“SAFETY FIRST” SHOULD BE UP BE¬ 
FORE US FIRST OF ALL IN THE CHOICE 
OF OUR COMPANIONSHIPS. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


95 


The boys who use bad language, and the 
girls who are not just as good as their mothers 
think they are, are not to be our companions if 
we observe the signal, “Safety First.” “Safety 
First” means to shun the things that are going 
to make for ruin, and tend at least to hamper us 
in our progress. What a difference it would 
make if every boy and girl stopped and asked 
themselves in the midst of their difficulties— 
“How would Jesus act if He were in my place 
now?” and then try to carry out the dictates of 
their conscience as to what Jesus would do. I 
am quite sure that this is the best “Safety 
First” plan for the life of every boy and girl. 
The standards of Jesus are surely the safest 
standards for everybody. 

Just let me show you how I know it works 

out. 


A certain little boy was sorely tempted to 
do something that he knew was wrong. He 
knew that his father would be very cross with 
him if he found out what he had done. He told 
himself however that his father would not find 
out, and then it would not be so bad. He was 
just about to do what he knew he ought not to 
do when he remembered that his Sunday School 
teacher had said only the last Sunday that God 
could see every thing we did, and that it pained 
our Heavenly Father when He saw His boys 
and girls doing wrong, and immediately he 
made up his mind not to do what he had 
thought of doing. Even if he could keep it from 
his father he could not keep it from his Heav- 



96 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


enly Father and the best way was not to do it 
at all. He adopted the Safety First plan and it 
worked out for his good. 

Another boy met with the same kind of 
temptation and he told himself that nobody 
would find out, and that everything would be all 
right, and he went ahead and did what he knew 
he ought not to do. He was found out and the 
remorse he suffered when his Dad talked to him 
made him say this, “If I had only stopped to 
think I would have known that I would be found 
out”. He did not adopt the “Safety First” plan 
and it was unfortunate for him. 

A certain brave boy who had adopted the 
“Safety First” standard of Jesus was attending 
one of the leading colleges to get an education. 
He was a crack athlete and was naturally in de¬ 
mand for the various teams representing the 
games he played. One day however, when they 
were getting ready to play one of their hardest 
games, one of the players began to use some 
very bad language. The words grated on the 
finer senses of the boy who had accepted a 
higher standard of life, but at first he did not 
know what to do. Was he to remain quiet or 
was he to be outspoken, and refuse to play if 
it went on? He thought of the standard of 
Jesus and in an instant he took the right course 
and said he would not play if such language did 
not stop. The boys thought him joking for a 
few minutes, but when they found that he was 
in real earnest the bad language very quickly 
stopped. The “Safety First” method worked 
out. Had he just kept quiet he might have lost 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


97 


all the chances he had of becoming great, but 
he was careful not to allow anything to go on in 
his company without being out-spoken as to 
where he stood. Is it any wonder that when he 
grew up he was made a Bishop of his church 
and was known as Bishop Patteson? 

I was one day looking through an iron 
works, and was very much interested to hear 
the explanations my friend, who was showing 
me around was making about the various ma¬ 
chinery. We came to a place where they were 
making large boilers. I asked him if there was 
any likelihood of the boilers exploding and he 
said quite readily, “Not one chance in a thous¬ 
and. The boilers are tested when they are made, 
to stand strain of at least 500 lbs. of steam 
pressure more than they will ever be called up¬ 
on to stand in the ordinary course of the work 
at which they are required.” 

At once I saw the wisdom of the whole 
thing and recognized the principle of “Safety 
First.” Jesus says that there will never come 
any temptation upon us but what we shall have 
strength to bear it. Again He says—“My 
Grace shall be sufficient for you,” assuring us 
that He has calculated how much we will be 
called upon to stand; and He has also promised 
to be by our side when danger threatens our 
spiritual existence. 

Always remember this, boys and girls, that 
the “Safety First” plan of life will always bring 
you satisfaction, and may it be your purpose 
to always try to live as Jesus wants you to live. 



98 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


“SHIPS THAT SAIL AND SHIPS THAT 
SINK.” 

I wonder how many boys and girls have 
been to the seaside? Quite a number, no doubt. 
And you have wondered at the sights of the 
great sea with its rolling waves breaking in on 
the shore. Probably you have seen on bright 
sunny days, the fish just jumping out of the 
water, and you longed to be out trying to catch 
them. The sea is a wonderful sight and no mat¬ 
ter how many times you go to look at it you 
will never get tired of it because it is like the 
great mountains, always appearing different, 
and always making us think of the Great Lov¬ 
ing Father who put all the good things in the 
world. 

Now while you have probably seen the sea 
in many different moods you have not likely 
seen it in a storm, and in the midst of the storm 
seen a shipwreck. Being born and raised at the 
seaside, I was privileged to see several ship¬ 
wrecks, and have seen on more than one occa¬ 
sion the crew brought in by the lifeboat, saved, 
while their boat and all they had went to the 
bottom of the sea or were dashed to pieces on 
the rocks. 

In thinking over this little chat it occurred 
to me that I might analyze the shipwreck, and 
the mystery surrounding ships, and see what 
are the causes of such disasters. There are 
ships that sail and there are ships that sink. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


99 


When a small boy I have often tried to 
make a boat, and I do not remember one single 
instance where I was successful, in making a 
boat that would really sail upright. There was 
always something wrong with it and generally 
it was this 

It was not properly balanced. Sometimes 
it was too heavy on one side and sometimes it 
was too heavy on the other. But there re¬ 
mained the fact: It was not balanced. 

I. NOW HOW OFTEN THE CAUSE OF THE 

SADDEST FAILURES IN LIFE IS JUST 

DUE TO THIS FEATURE; NOT PROP¬ 
ERLY BALANCED. 

Try to keep your balance. There are some 
things that always sink the life of a boy or girl. 
Bad temper will sink a ship every time it gets 
aboard. It upsets the equilibrium, and then the 
whole ship is in danger of tipping over. 

Bad habits will sink the ship every time. 
I have known lives to be completely upset by 
the presence of bad habits. Telling a lie may 
not seem to be very wrong but it is just wrong 
enough to put everything else wrong from be¬ 
ginning to end. 

Evil companionships and associations will 
unbalance the ship, and have more than once 
been the means of putting a good ship on the 
rocks. Beware of being unbalanced in your 
judgments as in everything else, and then your 
craft will not sink because of that. 



100 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


II. THEN ANOTHER CAUSE OF THE SINK¬ 
ING SHIP IS THIS:—SOMETIMES THE 
MATERIAL IS FAULTY, AND A LITTLE 
FLAW IN THE MATERIAL OR THE 
WORKMANSHIP WILL VERY OFTEN 
BE THE MEANS OF THE WRECK OF A 
MAGNIFICENT VESSEL. 

What a tremendous place the failure plays 
in life—that is, the fellow with a fault in every¬ 
thing he has to do. Sometime ago Bradstreets, 
the people who know how much everybody is 
worth, so far as business is concerned, issued 
the following statement about faults and fail¬ 
ures in business: “Seven-tenths of all failures 
are due to faults of the people themselves, and 
only three-tenths due to other forces, over 
which they have no control.” 

Dividing up the seven-tenths they give 
their findings as follows: “19 per cent due to 
incompetence, 7.8 per cent due to inexperience, 
30.8 per cent due to lack of capital. The re¬ 
mainder to speculation.” 

Forty prominent business men were asked 
to give their idea why so many failed, and their 
answers summed up the causes as follows:- 
“Bad habits. Bad judgment. Bad associations, 
and the inability to say ‘No’ at the proper time.” 
It seems to me that they could have said the 
same things will sink every ship and ruin every 
life. Beware of the faulty material which gets 
into your life and which will assuredly bring 
wreckage if not taken out. 



PASTOR'S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


101 


III. THEN AGAIN I WANT YOU TO NO¬ 
TICE THIS:-NOT ONLY THE SHIPS 
THAT ARE NOT BALANCED AND THE 
SHIPS WITH FAULTY MATERIAL 
COME TO GRIEF, BUT THE SHIPS BAD¬ 
LY MANNED COME TO GRIEF, AND IN 
GREATER NUMBERS THAN EITHER 
OF THE OTHER TWO. 

I remember several ship captains, who were 
only names to me years ago, who ran their ves¬ 
sels on the rocks or got into a collision or met 
with some other mishap, who were relieved of 
their Master's Certificates, or had them sus¬ 
pended by the Board of Navigation dealing with 
such cases, and all because they were consid¬ 
ered incompetent for the deep sea experiences 
which they would be called upon to face. 

How sad it is to see a young life just drift¬ 
ing because it is not properly manned. Many 
young men today on the verge of blue ruin are 
there because they did not man their craft wise¬ 
ly, and allowed themselves to drift onto the 
rocks without any effort to prevent disaster. 
You cannot keep off the rocks unless you have 
yourself in check, and have your code of life 
always before you. You cannot afford to go out 
to meet the storms of life and not be properly 
equipped in ideals of what life ought to be, and 
my advice to you who are just about ready to 
go out on life's ocean is that you take the Great 
Captain into your life and let Him man your 
vessel. Jesus Christ has brought more lives 
safely through the storms of trial and difficulty 



102 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


and temptation that any other leader the world 
has known. New Testament men who lived with 
Him in the flesh spoke of Him as the Captain 
of their salvation, and as they found Jesus their 
mainstay in life and were able to weather their 
storms, so you will be helped with yours if you 
accept Him as your Captain. 

You don’t want to be found on the rocks, 
lost because you did not pilot your ship aright. 
And if you take Jesus as your Captain you will 
be safe for this life and for the life to come. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


103 


“ECHOES.” 

I want to speak to you this morning about 
Echoes. You all know what an echo is. You 
go out to the woods and call out a name and 
immediately the same name is called back to 
you by a voice away off in the woods. Many 
boys and girls have been badly scared by the 
sound of this wonderful voice calling back to 
them, and thought that sure enough somebody 
was after them. When we know what the echo 
really is of course our worries are at an end. 
We just wonder a little at the grandeur of the 
world in which we live. 

They tell us that the echo is caused in this 
way. There is a real physical basis for it all. It 
is due to the reflection of sounds from walls, 
mountains, woods or even clouds. Of course 
they must be located in certain places so as to 
reflect sound, the one to the other; and the 
rebound of the sounds gives the echo. The re¬ 
bound comes back so fast that it seems to the 
listener that someone is actually mimicing 
them. 

In Greek mythology the echo was ex¬ 
plained in this way. A nymph, the daughter 
of Aer and Gea, was continually talking about 
the love of Jupiter, and her chatter was at last 
painful to the gods who removed her speech 
from her and allowed her to repeat only the 
words said to her. Of course that is only an old 
fashion story from the book of fables and you 
do not believe it true. 



104 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


There are, however, echoes which are more 
interesting than this story from the far off 
Greeks, and they are the echoes we hear every 
day in the lives of boys and girls. I wonder 
how many of you think that your lives really 
make an echo, or perhaps you are just an echo 
of some other life with which you have come in 
contact. I heard some time ago of a young man 
of whom, when he preached his first sermon in a 
certain pulpit in which his father had preached 
several years before, an old lady who was very 
friendly with his family said, “As soon as he be¬ 
gan to speak I heard the echo of his father's 
voice." Evidently he had the same voice as his 
father and probably other characteristics, and 
that linked him to his father, just as real as 
the echo is the duplicate of another sound. 
Boys are very often the echo of their fathers, 
as girls are the echo of their mothers. In con¬ 
versation with a young girl, who rightly had a 
very high estimate of her mother she said, “I 
hope when I grow up I will be just my mother 
over again”. Knowing them both I would not 
think it out of the way for her to wish that 
wish. 

You are all the echo of some life, and some 
other boy or girl will be the echo of what you 
are. When we hear an echo and know that the 
sound is reproduced exactly as it was given we 
can conclude that somehow or other the influ¬ 
ences we allow to get into ourselves will be re¬ 
peated just exactly the same in the lives of 
others. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


105 


Let me tell you in an illustration what I 
mean. 

I heard a man swear once in the presence 
of his little boy, and it was not very long after 
that I heard the little boy saying exactly the 
same thing. I was horrified but—I knew that 
it was just the echo of his father’s voice and 
did not blame the child. Now we can not al¬ 
ways go to a father and stop him from swear¬ 
ing, but we can take care that the influence go¬ 
ing forth from our lives, as boys and girls, will 
be wholesome, and when we hear the echo we 
can be proud of it, if it is good and true to what 
we think is right. 

The story is told, that one day two boys 
who were brothers were walking along the 
street together, and the younger who had been 
unfortunate enough to have been born just af¬ 
ter his father’s death and had never seen his 
father, was very deeply concerned about what 
his father looked like. He kept asking his broth¬ 
er what his father looked like, in a dozen differ¬ 
ent ways. The bigger brother was doing his best 
to explain and answer the questions as to the 
height and looks of his father, when they met 
an old friend of his father who stopped the 
boys, and after talking for a few minutes said, 
“John you’re getting to be the very image of 
your father”. The younger jumped with excite¬ 
ment right in front of the older boy and looked 
at him for a few minutes without a move and 
then said, “Now I know what my father was 
like for I see him in you, John.” 




106 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


The moral goes very deep, boys and girls. 
Our chums see Jesus echoed in our actions and 
in everything we do and say. Should we not 
try to represent him in the right way and be 
true to everything He held dear? 

You remember His words, “Ye are my 
witnesses to all the world,” and again in the 
Gospel Word, “I am the Light of the World” 
and, “Ye are the Light of the World,” just 
meaning that if we live like Jesus we can be in¬ 
fluences for good as He was in the world. When 
two men were going up to the Temple to pray 
they were met by a poor man asking for help 
and they healed him of the disease which had 
been his handicap for many years. After they 
had done this these words are recorded, “The 
people took notice of them, they had been with 
Jesus.” 

So, boys and girls, try to imitate Jesus in 
everything you do in everyday life and you will 
surely be the right kind of echoes in the world. 
May God help you. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


107 


WOODEN MONEY. 

Some little time ago I chanced to be in 
conversation with a friend of mine and I told 
him I was going to a certain place, and on leav¬ 
ing him, he said, “See that they do not give 
you any Wooden Money.” I bothered my head 
a great deal trying to understand what he 
meant by the remark until I found out that it 
was a saying of the old timers when they were 
on the lookout for counterfeit money which at 
times came into circulation. So I kept saying to 
myself, “Wooden Money. Did it mean anything 
else?” and I concluded that it did. 

Several years ago I was in the Old Coun¬ 
try and was given a Russian Ruble Bill for 1000 
rubles . I thought that I had struck a fortune. 
I was afterwards informed that it was then on¬ 
ly worth a pittance while in the days of Russian 
currency accepted at par it would have been 
worth several hundred dollars. But there re¬ 
mained a tale. It was worth at that time only a 
few cents. Its value had gone. I thought of 
it then as Wooden Money. Some years ago a 
panic almost arose in England over the pres¬ 
ence on the market of counterfeit money. The 
makers were caught eventually and given long 
terms of imprisonment. 

The counterfeit never is worth anything. 
For every real thing in the world someone has 
tried to invent a sham. I wonder if that is true 
about boys and girls ? I think perhaps it is not 
so generally true but there is enough truth 



108 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


about it to make us stop and think about it for 
a little while. 

There are counterfeit chums. Boys who do 
not ring true. During my college days there 
was a young chap whom I came in contact with, 
who was as well groomed as any person I ever 
came across. He always looked as if he had 
just come out of a Band Box, he was so new 
and prim. But there was something about him 
that did not impress me very favorably. I did 
not know what it was, but there was something 
about him that didn't ring true. Everything 
should have been all right,—I knew that,—but 
then, I couldn't convince myself that it was. A 
few years later I was sorry to find out that my 
suspicions of the counterfeit were justified. He 
got into a serious mixup from which he never 
recovered. 

There are the counterfeits of character in 
the boy and girl circles today and you ought to 
be on the lookout for them lest they beguile you 
and lead you into the same paths they are in 
themselves. 

Beware of the fellow who is always shower¬ 
ing compliments upon you. He generally has 
some axe to grind and most likely you are the 
stone he is going to grind it on. 

Beware of the boy with the smooth tongue. 
He will always fall in with the majority and al¬ 
ways have lots to say, but behind his words, 
generally there is something not just exactly 
what it should be. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


109 


Beware of the boy who always has lots of 
money to spend, altogether out of keeping 
with the position and good sense of his parents. 
Generally he has some means of getting it not 
at all a credit to him. 

If you partake of the spoils you are as 
guilty of the wrong as he is of taking it. It 
is wooden money and lacks real value which can 
be enjoyed. 

There are several tests for the genuine and 
the false in money. 

L IT RINGS TRUE IF IT IS THE REAL 

THING. 

You have all met the fellow who does not 
ring true. Perhaps you do not know what it 
is about him, like myself with the young fellow 
about whom I just told you, but if the true ring 
is not there beware lest you be deceived. 

II. THERE IS THE WEIGHT TEST. 

Whenever you take gold to a bank in the 
Old Land the cashier counts to see if the right 
number of coins are there but he afterwards 
weighs it to see if the right weight is there. He 
can tell at a glance at the scale and if it is light 
it is carefully gone over and then the light 
weight is returned to you. 

There are light weight boys and girls in 
the world who, when they are put to the test 
are very much underweight. The boy who is 



110 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


short weight on honesty and truthfulness and 
punctuality is always found out when the test¬ 
ing time comes, and then he is always the loser. 

Don’t be “Wooden Money” in life. Jesus 
wants to help you make your life just what it 
ought to be and if you trust your life to Him 
He will always keep you up to the standard re¬ 
quired for real boys and girls in the world. 

In His Word He says “Whatsoever things 
are true, Whatsoever things are pure, think on 
these things.” And if you do you will never 
live to see the day when you will regret it. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


111 


WATCHES. 

I do not need to tell you that what I have 
in my hand is a watch nor do I need to tell you 
what it is for. You all have watches in your 
homes and probably many of you have watches 
of your very own. It certainly is very conveni¬ 
ent to have time tellers as we have them today. 
When we stop to think of the way our great 
grandfathers used to tell the time of day we 
must realize how very fortunate we are that 
men have been able to measure time and put 
it into such an easy means of reckoning so that 
everybody can tell in a quick look at the watch 
or clock just what time of day it is. 

In the early days they had to tell the time 
by the sun dial and the length told how far the 
sun had run its course for that day. Today we 
have time tellers of all sizes which tell us the 
time regardless of the sun and tell it to us day 
and night alike. 

You may be walking along the street in a 
city and the Big Ben at the City Hall strikes 
out the time as you move along telling you that 
it is a certain hour. 

You may be out in the country and if you 
feel hungry you turn to your own little time 
piece and it says to you, “It's time to eat.” 

I do not know what we would do today 
without our method of registering time. Trains 
leave on it, or are supposed to do so. Meetings, 
concerts and all other evening forms of enter- 



112 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


tainment are announced to start at a certain 
time and everybody goes by their time piece to 
help them get there at that hour. 

Now there are certain things in common 
with boys and girls and watches which are very 
important in each case. 

I. A WATCH TO BE OF ANY GOOD MUST 

BE TRUE IN ITS ESTIMATE OF THE 

TIME. 

A watch running slow is a very great 
handicap and sometimes means heavy losses to 
its owner. He may miss a train or be late for 
an appointment of great importance to himself 
or his business. Then again a watch running 
ahead of time is almost as bad. If it is 15 min¬ 
utes ahead, think of all the time wasted in wait¬ 
ing for the other people to come whose watches 
are running true to time. The necessary thing 
in a watch is its ability to keep good time. 

But is that not true also about the boy and 
girl who would be worth while in the world. 
They must ring true to real standards of what 
is right. Take the boy who is always lagging 
behind and he does not get very far ahead in 
the world. And the boy who is too fast is not 
by any means desirable. The boy for whom 
this world has a big place is the boy who runs 
true to recognized standards. 

Then the boy who has a correct estimate of 
time and values it has always a place in this 
world. It was Mr. Edison who said that if 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


113 


we ever wanted to be great we must never look 
at the clock. By that he meant that we must 
not always have our eyes on the clock and think 
of nothing else but he did not mean that we had 
to disregard time. He meant keep working, and 
the time would take care of itself. 

II. A WATCH WE LIKE TO CARRY IS THE 

ONE WE KNOW TO BE RELIABLE. 

Some run fast, others slow, but some stop 
altogether and leave us in the lurch. It does 
not matter very much about the cover or case 
of the watch, the main thing is, that it should 
be reliable at all times. 

We have heard of boys and girls, too, who 
are in the unreliable class, whose word cannot 
be depended upon and whose testimony on any 
subject is always received with a pinch of salt. 
How delightful it is to have people you can de¬ 
pend upon, whose word is always their honor 
and who can always be trusted to be up to the 
mark in anything they undertake to do. No 
employer wants to have the boy in his employ 
who is not trustworthy. In fact, there is really 
no place for untrustworthy boys at all. They 
may be shining on the outside and look the part 
as though they are genuine, but if the “Goods” 
are not in the heart and life they are not much 
good to anybody. 

III. A WATCH IS ALSO A GUIDE TO US IN 

DIVIDING UP OUR DAY. 

We know that we have a certain amount to 



114 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


do during the day and to do it all we must map 
out how much we must do by noon and by 2 
o'clock and so on, if we are to finish all the 
work. And when we look at the watch we are 
told just where we are. Is that not just what 
God intended His own Word to be to every boy 
and girl? Just a timepiece telling them where 
they stand in relation to the things He expected 
them to do for Him every day. For instance 
every boy who believes in Jesus Christ knows 
that He expects them to help Him in making 
this old world better and they know that they 
must assist by doing some of the work every 
day they live. They must speak kind words 
every day and do loving acts all the time if they 
are to keep caught up on the program He has 
for them. If you lose an opportunity it may 
never come back to you and think what a hole 
that makes in the plan of Jesus for your life. 

Every boy and girl ought to serve Jesus all 
the time and give Him the very best they have 
and then when the eventide of life comes you 
will be able to look at the years of time and in 
checking up you will be able to say, “I gave 
Jesus the best of my life and tried to the best 
of my ability to serve Him with every day and 
every hour He gave." 

So may this little chat about our watches 
make us all better in using every moment for 
His Kingdom. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


115 


TRAIN TALK. 

I was walking along side of a railroad track 
some years ago which, by the way, was quite 
an incline as it wound round the side of rather 
a steep hill. As I walked along I heard ap¬ 
proaching from behind what I recognized by the 
sound as a heavy freight train. As it ap¬ 
proached the hill it was very noticeable to me 
that it was having a very heavy task in getting 
to, the top. As it throbbed and let off steam it 
seemed to me to be saying, “I—think—I—can. 
I—think—I—can. I—think—I—can.” And up 
the hill it struggled till it got over the brow and 
was on the way down the other side and it im¬ 
mediately gained speed and started saying as 
it went, “I—knew—I—could. I—knew—I— 
could. I knew I could.” 

Now it seemed to me as I walked along 
after the train had passed by that the train 
talk must have something in it for the boys 
and girls who were trying to make their way in 
the world. 

I. THE ENGINE AT THE HEAD OF THE 

TRAIN GETS THERE BY HARD WORK. 

If the engine plays out the whole train is 
delayed. Were it not for the engine at the head 
end of the train the cars would just stand at 
the same place forever. And it means a great 
strain on the engine to do the work, but it is 
always equal to the task. It gets there by hard 
work. 



116 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


It is the same with the boy and girl who 
win success in the world. Hard work brings 
it when nothing else will. Some, of course, do 
not have to work hard for their success. Their 
father was bom rich before them and paved 
the way. Generally that kind of success doesn’t 
count for much. The success worth having is 
the kind we earn for ourselves. It was said of 
Daniel Webster that he was just like a steam 
engine in trousers, he worked so hard. But then 
we must remember that that was how he got 
his success. It was paid for in his own life¬ 
blood. Napoleon was a fiend for work. When¬ 
ever he had a big battle before him he always 
went to bed with the plans for attack under his 
pillow so that when he woke up in the morn¬ 
ing he would be able to look at his plans and 
study them out a little more thoroughly. 

One of the greatest linguists the world ever 
had was a man who in his student days was a 
seller of sauer kraut in the markets of a Ger¬ 
man city. While he was engaged in the selling 
of sauer kraut he was also plugging away at 
a number of languages and eventually he mas¬ 
tered 13 of the world’s hardest languages and 
was afterwards a teacher of the same in one of 
Germany’s universities. 

Hard work got there. Don’t be afraid of 
it. Dig into the task you set yourself and make 
up your mind that you are going to get there 
if hard work will do it. 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


117 


II. THE NEXT WORD THE TRAIN HAS TO 
SAY AS IT PASSES ALONG IS THIS: “I 
WOULD RATHER WEAR OUT THAN 
RUST OUT.” 

You know there are a great many people in 
this world who are doing work for which they 
are not fitted but which thru their own indif¬ 
ference they must do. They were born with 
talents and should have made their way in the 
world but they would not try to use their tal¬ 
ents and they very soon lost the ability to use 
them at all. God doesn’t waste time with the 
talents of the fellow who will not use them. He 
simply takes them away and gives them to 
others. The athlete never lies down and says 
to himself that he must not work his muscles 
for fear they will wear out. He knows that he 
must keep fit and if he does wear out he has the 
satisfaction that it is better to wear out than 
rust out through indifference. 

God has given you talents and He expects 
all of you to use them for His Glory and for 
your own good. If you use them He will in¬ 
crease them and make you the more useful and 
happier as you live day by day. It is better to 
wear out than to rust out. 

III. THE TRAIN AS IT PASSES ALONG 
SAYS AS IT GOES, “I KNOW WHERE 
I’M GOING AND I’M ON MY WAY.” 

The engineer has orders in his possession 
which tell him where he is to go. He has a des¬ 
tination assigned. How many boys and girls of 



118 


PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


school age are in this same position ? They have 
a destination towards which they are shaping 
their ways. All credit to them and may their 
number increase from day to day. But there 
are a large number who are not in this class 
and who do not know what they want to be in 
the world. They have no place in particular 
towards which they are moving. 

Some years ago while I was waiting for a 
train I chanced to get into a conversation with a 
young fellow just about 16 years of age. After 
we had talked a few minutes I said to him, 
“Jack, can you read?” The answer was; “No.” 
“Can you write?” The same answer, “No.” And 
my heart ached for that lad. Alone in the world 
and in this age, could neither read nor write. 
What chance had he in life of ever making a 
success ? It was almost hopeless. 

It will save a whole lot of worry and hard¬ 
ship in this world if a young person has a goal 
and works as though his life depended upon it. 

When the train is late it makes everybody 
else late. It delays the plans of many people 
and in some I have no doubt it means consid¬ 
erable loss. 

When you start out to make a destination 
take care that you do not get delayed by the 
wayside. Your lateness to arrive may hold up 
the plans of others. 

Two young men of my acquaintance in 
former years were studying for the same pro- 



PASTOR’S IDEAL SERMON BOOK 


119 


fession. One was a worker and arrived at the 
end of his course with credit and was able to 
help his father and mother out by the splendid 
income which immediately became his. The 
other slept by the way and even today after 
many years, he is still in a junior position. 

Make up your mind early what you want to 
be when you are men and then work towards 
that end and God’s richest blessing will be yours 
not only as you try now but all the days of 
your life. 



Other “Quick Service” Publications 

Pastor’s Ideal Funeral Manual.Price $1.75 

It contains over 150 poetical gems, over 150 apt illustrations and over 
50 excellent new funeral outlines by ministers of different denominations. 
Many choice compiled scripture selections. Forms of service, funeral 
hymn selections, etc. All neatly bound in Morocco cloth, limp, and just 
fits the coat pocket. This little book stands as a testimony for itself. To 
see it is to keep it. 

Pastor’s Ideal Sermon Book.Price $2.00 

(Cover and Sermons Complete) 

It is a book of thirty-five helpful sermons on live subjects which have 
been selected from a list of over one hundred sermons that were submitted 
for this book by ministers of different denominations, who, like all busy 
pastors, feel the need of real sermon material. They are placed in a special 
loose leaf book so you can add your own notes. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 1.Price $1.35 

(Fifteen Choice Sermons) 

The first “Supplement” contains fifteen choice sermons that have 
come from the very hearts of our brother ministers. The author has tried 
earnestly, in making these selections from scores of sermons, to give to his 
brother ministers quality instead of quantity. Every one is a real gathered 
gem. These sermons are printed on loose leaf pages and perforated, so 
they can be used in the “Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 2.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Evangelistic Sermons) 

The question, “WHAT SHALL I PREACH DURING MY RE¬ 
VIVAL," is answered by SUPPLEMENT No. 2, which contains fifteen 
new evangelistic sermons. Some of the nation’s leading evangelists have 
submitted sermons for this supplement. They are printed on loose leaf 
pages to fit “Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 3.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Devotional Sermons) 

This “Supplement” contains fifteen devotional sermons. They are 
highly spiritual and uplifting. They are ideal and inspiring for the morning 
worship service. Made to fit “Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 4.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Popular Evening Sermons) 

This supplement contains fifteen striking, unusual, popular sermons. 
They will give real “pep” to your night service. They are sermons in full 
and made to fit the “Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 6.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Prize Sermons) 

It contains fifteen real prize sermons. They are the best out of a list 
of over one hundred submitted. It contains an excellent Mother’s Day, 
Easter, and Baccalaureate Sermon. Every sermon is printed in full, well 
illustrated and especially selected to serve in the time of urgent need. Made 
to fit Sermon Book cover. 

















The Select Book Supplement No. 6.Price $1.40 

It contains fifteen real select sermons that have been chosen from a large 
list submitted. It contains an excellent YOUNG PEOPLE’S, PATRIOTIC, 
MUSICAL, THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS, NEW YEAR’S, and 
several good evangelistic sermons. Sermons printed in full and well illus¬ 
trated. Made to fit “Sermon Book” Covers. 


The Treasure Book Supplement No. 7.Price $1.40 

It contains fifteen real treasure sermons. Among the number are several 
good evangelistic sermons, and the following special day sermons, MIS¬ 
SIONARY, DECORATION, EVERY MEMBER CANVASS. BOY SCOUT 
and also two special addresses, one to INSURANCE MEN and the other 
a general address. You will be pleased with the quality of this book. 
Made to fit cover. 


Extra Sermon Book Covers. Price 75c 

Extra Blank leaves, per package, (50 in package). Price 25c 


Any of the above publications will be sent upon receipt of check or 
money order for the same with the understanding that the buyer will have 
the privilege of five days’ examination and if not entirely satisfied may 
return the same and money will be refunded. (This plan protects both 
buyer and seller.) Send all orders to, 


PASTOR’S IDEAL BOOK CO. 

St. John Halstead, Mgr. 
CLINTON, INDIANA, U. S. A. 










Other “Quick Service” Publications 

Pastor’s Ideal Funeral Manual.Price $1.75 

It contains over 150 poetical gems, over 150 apt illustrations and over 
50 excellent new funeral outlines by ministers of different denominations. 
Many choice compiled scripture selections. Forms of service, funeral 
hymn selections, etc. All neatly bound in Morocco cloth, limp, and just 
fits the coat pocket. This little book stands as a testimony for itself. To 
see it is to keep it. 

Pastor’s Ideal Sermon Book.Price $2.00 

(Cover and Sermons Complete) 

It is a book of thirty-five helpful sermons on live subjects which have 
been selected from a list of over one hundred sermons that were submitted 
for this book by ministers of different denominations, who, like all busy 

f jastors, feel the need of real sermon material. They are placed in a special 
oose leaf book so you can add your own notes. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 1.Price $1.36 

(Fifteen Choice Sermons) 

The first “Supplement” contains fifteen choice sermons that have 
come from the very hearts of our brother ministers. The author has tried 
earnestly, in making these selections from scores of sermons, to give to his 
brother ministers quality instead of quantity. Every one is a real gathered 
gem. These sermons are printed on loose leaf pages and perforated, so 
they can be used in the "Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 2.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Evangelistic Sermons) 

The question, “WHAT SHALL I PREACH DURING MY RE¬ 
VIVAL,” is answered by SUPPLEMENT No. 2, which contains fifteen 
new evangelistic sermons. Some of the nation’s leading evangelists have 
submitted sermons for this supplement. They are printed on loose leaf 
pages to fit "Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 3.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Devotional Sermons) 

This “Supplement” contains fifteen devotional sermons. They are 
highly spiritual and uplifting. They are ideal and inspiring for the morning 
worship service. Made to fit “Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 4.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Popular Evening Sermons) 

This supplement contains fifteen striking, unusual, popular sermons. 
They will give real “pep” to your night service. They are sermons in full 
and made to fit the “Sermon Book” cover. 

Sermon Book Supplement No. 6.Price $1.40 

(Fifteen Prize Sermons) 

It contains fifteen real prize sermons. They are the best out of a list 
of over one hundred submitted. It contains an excellent Mother's Day, 
Easter, and Baccalaureate Sermon. Every sermon is printed in full, well 
illustrated and especially selected to serve in the time of urgent need. Made 
to fit Sermon Book cover. 














The Select Book Supplement No. 6.Price $1.40 

It contains fifteen real select sermons that have been chosen from a large 
list submitted. It contains an excellent YOUNG PEOPLE’S, PATRIOTIC, 
MUSICAL. THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS, NEW YEAR’S, and 
several good evangelistic sermons. Sermons printed in full and well illus¬ 
trated. Made to fit “Sermon Book” Covers. 


The Treasure Book Supplement No. 7.Price $1.40 

It contains fifteen real treasure sermons. Among the number are several 
good evangelistic sermons, and the following special day sermons, MIS¬ 
SIONARY, DECORATION. EVERY MEMBER CANVASS, BOY SCOUT 
and also two special addresses, one to INSURANCE MEN and the other 
a general address. You will be pleased with the quality of this book. 
Made to fit cover. 


Extra Sermon Book Covers.Price 75c 

Extra Blank leaves, per package, (50 in package).Price 25c 


Any of the above publications will be sent upon receipt of check or 
money order for the same with the understanding that the buyer will have 
the privilege of five days’ examination and if not entirely satisfied may 
return the same and money will be refunded. (This plan protects both 
buyer and seller.) Send all orders to, 


PASTOR’S IDEAL BOOK CO 

St. John Halstead, Mgr. 
CLINTON, INDIANA, U. S. A. 












I 
















































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